A Snake in the Lion's Den
by KoolKidKlan
Summary: Harry finds out about his magic at a young age and uses his powers to have a far better life than canon Harry. He goes to Hogwarts at age 11 to find that his parents are alive? Manipulative Slytherin-like Harry, Wrong BWL. Harry/Fleur eventually, but will have minor relationships in between.
1. Chapter 1: Discovery

**Well seeing the reviews against long paragraphs made me reread my own work, and I agree, its hard to read. So I broke it down into shorter paragraphs and I took out the Author's Note in the middle of the chapter.**

**Chapter 1**

"Brat, wake up," an indistinguishable squeal resounded from the kitchen of the Dursley household. 'Number Four Privet Drive' the said brat, actually named Harry, thought sardonically as he quickly got out of bed. 'My personal hell'. He quickly changed into loose-fitting jeans and a v-neck t-shirt and put on a pair of socks. He glanced up at the beaten down clock on the wall. It was 6:00.

Harry quickly brushed his teeth with his own battered toothbrush in the downstairs bathroom and matted his hair perfectly down. He put on his slightly broken glasses and walked to the kitchen. He had to be ready to begin his chores at 6:30, and it was 6:25. His aunt, the wonderful Petunia, was over there waiting for him.

"Okay, freak, you are going to make breakfast now. Pancakes for Dudley, an omelet for me, and bacon for your Uncle Vernon. Is that clear?" Petunia asserted.

"Yes Aunt Petunia," Harry drawled. He quickly got to work, splitting the egg shells and making the batter for the pancakes while he got out the bacon from the fridge and put it on the frying pan with extra butter, as the fat Vernon wanted it. He quickly finished his task of making the family breakfast at 7:00, when Dudley and Vernon's thundering footsteps were audible from upstairs as they had probably both just gotten up and were both brushing. It was incredible how both of them could make such a racket while coming down the stairs; the neighbors frequently complained about the noise.

Today was a school day for Dudley and Harry, and a work day for Vernon, so they woke up fairly early at seven. On weekends, they usually woke up at 9 or 10, but Harry could not sleep in on those days either. Petunia, an obsessive harpy hell-bent on crushing Harry's spirit, would challenge her feeble mind into trying to think of the most grotesque or tedious chores for Harry to do Saturday mornings. She took pleasure in the fact that while most children would be watching cartoons or sleeping in on Saturdays and Sundays, Harry would be forced to work like a dog. Focusing back on the task at hand, Harry set each of the plates with each of his dishes as he poured out coffee for Vernon, orange juice for Petunia, and soda for Dudley. Dudley had recently taken to drinking soda with every meal, a decision that his dentist greatly disapproved of. But everything had to be perfect for ickle Diddykins, so he got his soda.

Harry prepared his own breakfast from the meager portions he was allowed to use for himself: a slice of bread. He was not even allowed to toast it; no, 'that costs electricity which costs money' Vernon said every time Harry asked, of course in much harsher words. He ate it slowly, savoring the taste of the only food he would get for 12 hours. The Dursleys believed that lunch was the most important meal of the day, which is why they spited Harry by not giving him any. They had to keep him alive, but apart from that, they could do anything they wanted to him.

Since he was four, Harry was frequently beaten by his uncle, and given many lashes for the stupidest of reasons. Of course, lashes were with a belt and not a switch, but they were on his bare back and hurt all the same. Of course, eventually, Harry got used to the pain, but was able to fake flinches in order to prevent the Dursleys from attacking him more. The Dursleys took perverse pleasure in putting a seven year old through hell, and Harry knew it. He saw the gleams in their eyes every time they overworked him or did not feed him. Well he had resolved when he got his first lashing, that they would pay for their actions against him. He did not know how, and he did not know when, but they would pay. Of course, Harry sneaked away enough food during midnight to never be seriously hungry and have little to no health effects, but going twelve hours without food was something that no one would willingly do regularly.

By the time the Dursleys had made it down the stairs, Harry had finished his slice of bread and he had the thirty minutes between when he finished making breakfast to 7:30, when they had to leave for school, to do his homework. He went back into his cupboard (he was not even given the basic human decency of a room, something Petunia and Vernon took even more pleasure in) to do his math homework, which he found ridiculously easy, and to finish his social studies homework which he had started at 10:30 the previous night. When he was done, twenty minutes later, he came out of the cupboard and got his tattered backpack ready for school. He made a mental checklist for everything he needed, and after making sure that he was ready for school, started walking, as he did not want to be late.

Even though his school started at 8:00, he had to leave home at 7:30 because his school was twenty-five minutes away by walking, and his uncle did not think that 'freaks' deserved to be driven to school. He had to take a slightly longer way to school because the quicker way crossed the path that Vernon would take when dropping Dudley off and he would encourage Dudley to throw stones at Harry, something Dudley did well without encouragement. Harry quickly made his way to school in time and went into class, turning in his math homework into the tray in the front of the room, then sitting down. Harry was thankful that Dudley was not in his class that year, as his first grade year was a nightmare. Dudley would constantly tell his parents about Harry's grades, which Harry refused to purposefully lower, and in the Dursley household, for Harry at least, good grades were never good. Harry took out his pencil and looked to the board for instructions.

His second grade teacher, Ms. Brady, was an idiot. She was a sixty year old woman who took it as her own personal mission to ruin the school lives of her students. She would find fault in everybody and would have no misconceptions about telling the seven year old students what those faults were, even if they pertained to appearance. She frequently made her young students cry, and she seemed to be an older teaching version of Petunia. However, throughout her teaching, she talked in a sickeningly sweet voice, one that made most students want to throw up. The only reason she was kept at the school was that she had a tenure at Johnson Elementary, and could not be fired as long as she subscribed to the British code. The homework she assigned was long and tedious, and even Harry took at least an hour every day to finish his homework, even though students his age should have been getting at most twenty minutes of homework per day.

The worst thing about Ms. Brady, though, was that she had eliminated all forms of creativity during her classroom and had focused on following tedious algorithms to solve problems. Her class was more suited to a computer than a human, and Harry hated it. He sat at his desk, thinking about how stupid his teacher was when the bell rang. As the rest of the class came in to take their seats, Harry followed the instructions on the board: "take out your reading books and turn to page 332". Ms. Brady went to the front of the classroom.

"Good morning students," she said chirpily.

A sparse group of students scattered around the classroom responded back "Good morning Ms. Brady," while the rest of the class just mumbled along.

"Now now, we can't have that to start our day. Let's try again. Good morning students," she said in a sickeningly sweet voice.

"Good morning Ms. Brady," the entire class replied immediately.

"Much better. Now, we are going to be reading from your reading books on page 332. Does anyone need help finding it? Mr. Potter, you seem like the type to not know how to turn to the right page. Can someone help out Mr. Potter?" she said. Like Petunia and Vernon, she seemed to get a vindictive sense of pleasure seeing her students react when she treated them unfairly and had been trying to get a rise out of Harry for quite a while. Societal pressure too, contributed to Ms. Brady's vindictive sense of pleasure as the entire town knew that Harry Potter was the son of drunkards. Parents shielded their kids away from him, as if he contained some sort of disease, and a few children had teased him about it before. But this field was the perfect place for vultures like Ms. Brady to strike.

Those who had known Ms. Brady knew that she was quite a sweet woman; she was Mrs. Allen for a long period of time. Then, when she caught her husband cheating on her, she gained a vengeance to the world that could only be fulfilled by picking on the weak. And so, the nice Mrs. Allen transformed into the mean and unfair Ms. Brady.

"Excellent. Now Ms. Brown, can you read the title and infer what this story is about?" Ms. Brady asked. "Mr. Potter, what does 'infer' mean?"

Harry frowned at the unfairness of the question. After all, they were second graders, and that was a sixth grade vocabulary word at least. Luckily, he knew what the word meant. "Infer means to form a conclusion based on the evidence provided." he said.

"Excellent, Mr. Potter," Ms. Brady said in her ever-so-sweet tone. "Now, Ms. Brown,"

"Okay," Samantha Brown said. Harry looked down at the page and his eyes almost watered at the title. The title was "Death by Car"**  
**

"Death by Car," Samantha read. "Hmm, it seems like it is about a car crash that killed the author's relatives, and by reading the first sentence, it's clear that it's about a car crash that killed the author's parents." she said.

"Good work, Ms. Brown. Now, Mr. Potter, why do you think that the car crash would kill the author's parents. Do you think it could be because they were drunkards?" Ms. Brady asked. She almost was giddy with satisfaction as she saw Harry's hardened look against her. He was her last student to break; if she could break him, she could break anyone. She knew from what his aunt had sprouted throughout the neighborhood that his parents were drunkards and they were killed in a car crash, and she guessed correctly that that would be a sore topic for him.

All Harry's hopes for fairness were shattered with Ms. Brady's final question. He was beyond sad, no, now he was angry. He was angry at the Dursleys for treating him like a slave and now he had an outlet. He imagined hurting Ms. Brady. He needed her to feel pain, to feel anguish, to feel how he felt every day. He closed his eyes and let his anger abate, for anger would not solve anything. No, he needed to school the feeling of anger into one that could be used to do something constructive. He needed to calm down. He needed to be cool.

"Well, Mr. Potter. It is not nap time, you know. Or maybe you need to be transferred back to preschool, after all, what good can come out of the son of two drunkards?" Brady taunted.

Harry snapped. All remnants of his previous calm suave collected nature were gone. He needed Brady to feel pain, pain like he had never felt before. And so he opened his eyes and focused all of his anger onto Ms. Brady.

What happened next would be the topic of conversation of the students of Johnson Elementary for many years to come. Ms. Brady, the most hated teacher at the school, started writhing in spot, twitching in pain and letting out hollow screams. And those who were watching Harry could have sworn that they saw a reddish tint come into his normally emerald green eyes. But Ms. Brady soon passed out and Harry's anger soon abated as he realized that he had caused Ms. Brady to feel pain. He felt many things at once at that moment. He felt angry with himself, ashamed at his own behavior. But some part of him just felt so good. He did not know what it was, but he knew that if provoked he could be dangerous. And as Ms. Brady fell to the floor, he felt content.


	2. Chapter 2: Power

**To Teufel1987, sorry, I'll try not to do that in the future. Its my first time writing in this format, and I apologize. To Katconan, that's not true. I've had some extremely extremely bad teachers over the years who had tenures and could not be fired. Like no one who's done anything as extreme as Ms. Brady, but some pretty bad teachers overall. I'm from America though, and I have no clue how English teaching systems work. To Spring Rain, that chapter was just the intro. We'll get there next chapter.**

**Well, without further ado, Chapter 2**

**Chapter 2**

As the ambulance siren's harsh wailing faded into the distance, Harry had finished thinking about the strange incident for the day. He resolved that he would think about it later, when he had a clearer head. Right after Ms. Brady had passed out, Allie, another one of the second grade students in their class, took charge. She was an incredibly bossy kid and did not like it when no one listened to her 'orders', which involved sending others to the principal's office to report what happened. Since most of the students hated Ms. Brady, they were content with letting her lay on the floor while they went outside to play. Allie finally went outside to tell the principal what happened herself, since no one was listening to her.

The principal, a short and stout man in his mid 50's, immediately ran back to the scene of the classroom to find two of the students drawing a mustache on Ms. Brady, something Harry thought was a just punishment. He quickly pulled them off of Ms. Brady, threatening expulsions and promising suspensions to both of them, and checked Ms. Brady's vital signs. Ms. Brady took that moment to wake up and thought that the principal was trying to rape her, not that anyone would want to with her body, so she threw the principal off of her and slowly got up off the ground. Long story short, both the principal and Ms. Brady had to go to the hospital, Ms. Brady for her 'seizure' in the middle of class and the principal due to his two missing and three chipped teeth. Harry noted in wry amusement that the students who had witnessed the fight would tell all of their friends, and soon the principal and Ms. Brady would lose all respect that they carried within the school. He felt bad for the principal, who had done nothing wrong, but he felt vengeance towards Ms. Brady, who would now probably be forced to retire after psychologists deemed her insane. Even if she were allowed to teach, Harry realized that there was no way that she would want to be exposed to him as she probably knew that he was the one who attacked her, even if she had no proof.

While the school district was frantically looking for a substitute teacher to fill in the role of Ms. Brady for the rest of the day, Ms. Brady's second grade class was unfortunately lumped with Mr. Thompson's. Mr. Thompson was actually a reasonable teacher, but it was unfortunate because that was Dudley's class, and Dudley was constantly giving him a look of "oh, you're going to get it soon," throughout the class. Harry shivered in anticipation of Dudley's Harry hunting, in which Dudley and his friends Piers, Darnell, Theodore, and Beatry all sought Harry throughout the school, and beat him up when they found him. Well, maybe the same thing would happen to Dudley and his friends as Ms. Brady. He would have to think about that incident later though, as he was still on an emotional high at the moment.

Since there were only twenty desks in the classroom, the twenty students from Mr. Brady's classroom had to sit down on the floor. Currently, it was silent reading, so Mr. Thompson was doing his best to keep Dudley and his goons from snickering and sharing pointed looks at Harry or Ms. Brady's class talking to each other about what happened to her and whether Harry was responsible or not. Most of the students thought that Harry was not responsible, and it was just a coincidence, as the officials said that it was just a seizure. However, a few thought Harry was responsible and praised him for "getting rid of that old hag".

Harry kept his nose down throughout the silent reading, and focused on his book. Even though silent reading was supposed to be for literature books, the teachers also allowed textbooks to be read, so Harry was reading his Algebra textbook. However, he was not allowed to work on paper during class, because it was only supposed to be a time for reading. Harry could easily immerse himself in the world of numbers, and math came very easily to him. Harry was excellent at Science, History, and English, but Math was his best subject. He was currently doing seventh grade math in second grade, although he did not know it yet. Science was not a core curriculum for second graders, so Harry usually studied sixth through eighth grade science. The good thing about lower level sciences was that they were not cumulative, meaning seventh grade science did not rely on sixth grade, and eighth grade science did not rely on seventh grade. Harry's memory was superb, as although he did not have an eidetic memory, he could easily memorize things after hearing them once. With a sigh of displeasure at the noise the rest of the class was making, Harry turned back to his math.

After five more minutes of complete chaos in the time period deigned "silent" reading, Mr. Thompson decided that he couldn't deal with the kids' talking. He sent the students outside for recess for the rest of the day. Dudley grinned and cracked his knuckles menacingly in Harry's direction, signifying an upcoming attack. With another sigh of displeasure, Harry followed the rest of the students outside, being one of the earlier ones out, running from the classroom. Harry knew it would not help; the school was far too small for one person to hide from five chasers, not to mention the fact that there was nowhere to hide in their school. However, all five bullies were extremely fat, and the more he tired them out, the less of a beating he would get. It was a lesson that he had learnt over the years of being beaten by Dudley's gang of thugs. He ran throughout his usual track: through the fourth-sixth grade wing, around the third grade classrooms, and into the grassy field area, when he saw something that was not previously there.

There was a small hole through the fence of the school grounds, and Harry ran towards it. As he heard the loud voices of the bullies saying "I think he went that way", he past through the surrounding dugout for the cricket field, hiding him from view and bringing him closer to the hole in the fence. He quickly found the opening, only to realize that he had terribly miscalculated, for the hole was too small for him. As the voices of the bullies got closer, he desperately pounded the fence to get through. And just when the bullies were turning the corner to find him behind the dugout, Harry felt an odd sensation. It was a small tingling feeling that slowly grew and grew until it fully encompassed him. Right when the bullies were about to find him, he could have sworn that he felt himself dispersing in the wind. He closed his eyes, expecting the tell-tale punch of the bullies, when ... nothing came. He slowly opened his eyes and found himself on the other side of the fence?

"Damn," one of the thugs said. "We lost him."

"Don't worry," Dudley said. "He has to be somewhere in the school. Let's find him." They quickly ran toward the other end of the school, hoping to find Harry. Harry was in a small grass field on the other side of the fence with the small hole. The area was completely fenced off, so Harry was fine being in there. He let off the breath he had been holding until he realized that he had no way to get back. The area was fenced off. He had no way of getting back.

Harry realized that the incident with Ms. Brady could not have been an isolated incident, for he had done the same thing with Dudley. Well, now he had no choice but to face his mysterious power, whatever it was. He had hoped to leave it to the next day, but unfortunately, he would have to use it to get back inside the school's grounds. Harry wondered how this power got activated. With Ms. Brady, it was through anger, with Dudley's gang, it was through fear. So could he only access this power at a time of strong emotion? Damn, that was disappointing. Especially since he was not feeling a strong emotion at the moment, so there was no way he could get back. Unless those two were isolated incidents and emotion was not necessary for his mystical powers. But he didn't have time to figure that out now. He needed to get back.

Harry's thoughts were interrupted by a regal majestic sounded voice saying "You dare invade my territory, human. Prepare to die."

Harry spun around to see a large snake coiled up ready to strike him. Harry shivered in fear as the snake carefully slithered over in his direction. His mind, however, was racing. 'Fear powers teleportation, which means that I can soon teleport out of here.' he thought. He closed his eyes and desperately wished to be away from the snake. Immediately, he felt the same tingling as he was transported to the other side of the fenced lot. 'But not out of it,' he thought grimly. 'Should have specified.'

"A magical. Interesting." the sound seemed to be coming from the snake. Harry realized in surprise that in his fear, he did not realize that the sound had come from a snake! Could this snake talk? Could all snakes talk? That day seemed to just get weirder and weirder for Harry.

"Please don't hurt me. It's not my fault that I invaded your territory," Harry cried out desperately.

"A speaker," the snake said in shock. "My lord, I apologize for my misbehaviors towards you. Please forgive me."

"Okay?" Harry said. "You're forgiven?" he said questioningly. "But only if you tell me what a magical is."

"The speaker doesn't know!" the snake exclaimed. "The speaker doesn't know he is a magical."

"Let me see if I get this straight," Harry said. "First, you attack me, then you think I'm a magical, and now you think I'm a speaker? What kind of snake are you?"

"I am an Indian coral snake," the snake said. "Perhaps I should be more specific. I am an Indian king coral snake."

"King coral snake?" Harry questioned.

"Well I was. I was king over the coral snakes until those blasted humans stole me and took me here. I recently escaped from some sort of zoo that those blasted humans put animals on display. Those freaks. By the way, do you know where we are?" the snake said.

"England," Harry said.

"What? England? Those freaks took me all the way to England! I swear I will kill every one of them." the snake said.

Another snake slithered into the opening of the fence while saying "Oh, who are you threatening to kill this time, George?"

"Reggie, it's a speaker," the snake, now named George, said.

"A speaker? Why are you wasting your time talking to crazy George?" Reggie said.

"Well, I don't know what a speaker or a magical is, and that thing tried to kill me," Harry said.

"George? Nah, he's harmless. He's a Scarlet King snake, which uses mimicry to try to imitate Coral snakes. Thing is that he's been acting like one so long that he actually thinks he is a Coral snake." Reggie explained. "And as for magicals and speakers and the lot, magicals are wizards and witches, they're people who can use magic, like you. Speakers, or parslemouths as humans call them, are humans that can talk to and force control over snakes.

"I am too a coral snake," George said.

"I'm sure you are. Now go back to your burrow and I'll give you a rat," Reggie said as if talking to a small child.

"Yay," George exclaimed. He slithered on back to his burrow.

"Yeah, George is pretty crazy sometimes," Reggie said, watching him leave.

"Wait, so how do you know what magicals are?" Harry asked.

"Oh, some snakes are magical and they live with wizards, but they don't hide from the rest of us normal snakes, so we know enough about the magical world from them. Though I haven't met a magical snake yet, I learnt enough from my parents about magical snakes and magicals.

"Interesting," Harry said. He glanced back towards the fence and realized that he still had no way of getting back. He needed some way to transport himself back, and while fear could work, he first needed to be scared. But how? No, fear could not work, for he would not be truly scared if he knew that there was a fool-proof way to get out of the situation he was in by his wind teleportation. Maybe fear could be replaced with concentration. Yes, that had to work, otherwise he would be screwed. It was worth a shot, at least.

Harry closed his eyes and focused his mind on the tingly feeling that came when he wind-teleported the first time. He sat down and meditated, focusing all of his mental energy on one goal: getting out of there. And slowly but surely, that tingly feeling came again. He felt himself dispersing in the wind and reappearing on the other side. He focused on getting right outside the dugouts, and sure enough, when he opened his eyes, he was there. Harry noted a small sense of loss after his teleportation; it was like a loss of mental energy, which he supposed that he could denote as magic. He rationalized that magic could be replenished, otherwise wizards and witches would be useless, so he did not worry too much about his loss of magic. Harry heard the loud sound of the school bell ringing, signifying the end of the day, so he ran back to the room, packed up his stuff, and was about to head home when he realized that he could try to use his magic for that. He decided to try doing wind-teleporting with his eyes open instead of with them closed like he did it the first three times. He concentrated on the cupboard under the stairs and the tingly feeling he had when teleporting, and his surroundings instantly changed. There was no transferal time, at least visibly, to Harry.

Harry had five more minutes until Dudley and Vernon would come home, so he decided to see if he could intentionally inflict pain like he did to Ms. Brady, without feeling angry. He found a small spider in the cupboard and trapped it inside a glass cup. He stared at it for a few seconds, wondering how he could force pain onto the spider. Since he wanted to isolate the pain from anger so that he could use pain whenever he wanted to, and not when he was angry, he realized that he could not force pain by being angry. So he decided try something else.

Harry closed his eyes. He had once read in a fiction book that every living thing had a soul and that you could detect your soul through meditation. Harry decided that a sole could be referring to a magical core, so he closed his eyes and meditated. The book detailed a process in which you controlled your senses. Theoretically, in a perfectly dark room, while closing your eyes, you would see your soul after focusing on the darkness for a while. Harry had previously dismissed this notion as foolishness, but now he was not so sure. So he closed his eyes and concentrated completely on the darkness. Harry lost all sense of time and space, and was just focused on pure darkness. He put all of his mental concentration on pure darkness. And Harry could not tell when or how, but after a period of time, slowly light began to grow. It was pure white and it grew and grew until it suddenly stopped so that Harry was situated in an area three quarters white and one quarter black. Harry saw as the white and the black seemed to be fighting for control of one another, with the white winning. Seeing as white was supposed to be good, Harry reasoned that he should help the white, and he focused on the white light in his mind. He realized that focusing on the white light gave him intense mental pain, but he kept going anyways. Each side pushed and wrestled for dominance in a seemingly never-ending war as Harry focused purely on the white. And slowly but surely in a process similar to phagocytosis in cells, the light engulfed the darkness, holding it in its domain. After an incredibly painful event, Harry could see a dark bubble in his entire white conscience.

A second later in real time, Harry opened his eyes, his head in intense pain. It seemed that while his soul accepted the change in whatever that space was, his mind still hurt a lot. It was about ten times worse than his worst beating from Vernon, but Harry realized that it was a good sort of pain. It was almost like a cleansing pain; it was so painful that it was almost joyous to Harry knowing that he would never experience this kind of pain again.

About five minutes later, Harry's pain abated as Dudley crashed through the front door, apparently angry at something. "Where are you, you little freak. You thought you could get away from me?" Dudley yelled.

"Boy, as much as I appreciate your enthusiasm, that freak won't be here right now. He takes the pussy way back home because he's too scared of you." Vernon said.

"Actually," Harry said as he walked out of the cupboard. "I'm right here."

"You stupid filthy," Dudley began as Harry stared at him coldly. He quickly withered under Harry's gaze, like a dog with his tail between his legs, as he walked behind Vernon. Harry had decided that he had enough of this crap, and hopefully a beating would provide enough anger for a magical response. However, Dudley's reaction made him reconsider. He was not feeling an emotion when he said that to Dudley, no he was feeling intent. He slowly realized that emotion fuels intent, but if you could go straight to intent, you would not need emotion. Deciding to test out that theory, he stared at Vernon straight in the eye and focused all his intent on making him feel pain. And slowly but surely, Vernon emitted a shriek of pain and passed out on the floor.

"Y-your eyes," Dudley said. "They're red," he stuttered.

Harry paused. Well, his merging with the black magic probably caused a shift in his magic. He ran up the stairs into the bathroom and looked in the mirror to see that a small red circle was submerged in a sea of green in both of his irises. 'Well, that was probably a physical manifestation of my changed soul,' he noted. As Vernon stirred again, Harry decided that now would be the time to take a stand, so he slowly walked back down the stairs.

"Freak, we don't allow you upstairs. Get down, now." Vernon yelled.

"Do you not remember what just happened or are you just that stupid," Harry said the way he had seen on T.V. once.

"That was you? I'll stomp this freakishness out of you." Vernon yelled as he ran toward Harry. Harry focused on the tingly feeling he got while teleporting and teleported away from Vernon's meaty hands.

"Better try again," Harry taunted.

Vernon growled as he ran towards where Harry was in the house as Harry teleported up the stairs. "This is pretty boring you know," Harry said. "Why don't I show you what else I can do." He stared at Vernon like he had previously done, wanting him to feel pain but not enough to make him pass out. Staring in satisfaction at Vernon's writhing body, Harry slowly walked down the stairs. "There, now that's better isn't it. Now is ickle Vernon going to behave?" Harry taunted once again.

"Yes," Vernon grunted in pain.

"Aww, that's a good boy," Harry said. "Dudley, I trust that you won't do anything stupid,"

"O-okay," Dudley stuttered out.

"Good. Fetch your mother from the neighbor's house, and why don't we have a little family chat." Harry said. Seeing Dudley not moving, he reiterated "Now".

With a shaking step, Dudley ran out of the house as fast as his fat body could take him. Harry glared at Vernon again.

"You're evil," Vernon said. "Pure evil."

"Yes, well we all must reap what we sow, isn't that right Vernon. If you had done a good job in raising me and not beaten me, perhaps I would be nicer to you. After all, what seven year old boy has to do every chore in the house. Then again, what seven year old boy tortures others." Harry said.

"N-no," Vernon stumbled. "This is all your fault," he said, his voice getting louder and louder. "I'll F**KING KILL YOU," he roared the last part.

"Aww, are you going to attack me little Verny. With what? Huh? Your fists? Don't make me laugh, little Verny. Did you hear what happened to Ms. Brady?" Harry said.

"Th-th-th-that was y-you," Vernon said.

"Yes, that was me, little Verny. So if I were you, I wouldn't push me." Harry said.

Vernon gulped in fear as the front door banged open and Petunia dragged Dudley inside saying "That brat is going to get what's coming to him."

"Oh am I, Petty Petunia?" Harry said. He focused on Petunia and made her feel pain. "Will that help you be a nice person?"

"YOU BRAT" Petunia roared.

"Now now, Petty Petunia," Harry said as if talking to a child. "You are a bad girl, and what happens to bad girls? Oh yeah, they get punished. Now sit down and shut up or you will get what's coming to you."

A bystander walking in on this scene would be very confused, for it was absurd to see a small seven year old forcing the two big Dursley parents and their huge son to sit down while he proceeded to rant to them about the unfairness of his life and how much trouble they were in. But Harry relished in the fact that for once, he had power over the Dursleys, and he had to constantly pinch himself to keep from thinking it was all a dream. 'Was it really just this morning when Petunia forced me to cook for them' Harry constantly thought. He proceeded to berate the Dursleys, all of whom were staring at him with wide eyes. Harry finally focused pain on all three Dursleys at once to see if he could do it, and it worked as all three passed out soon. Harry packed up all of his stuff from the cupboard under the stairs and took it to the guest bedroom to unpack. He decided not to go to the second bedroom because the guest bedroom was bigger. Once he was finished, the other Dursleys were coming to their senses.

"Okay, Dursleys, here's how this is going to work. You will give me a weekly allowance of 100 pounds and in return I will not use my magic on you. Deal." Harry said.

Petunia reluctantly agreed seeing as she had no choice, and Harry went back to the guest bedroom to relax and see what else he could do with his magic, with his life suddenly taking a turn for the better.

**AN: Yeah, I'm sorry about the absorbing the horcrux thing is so cliche, but I didn't want Harry to have it for the rest of his life. He didn't get any of the memories that Voldemort had though, so that's good I guess.**


	3. Chapter 3: Transition

Sorry to disappoint some of you readers, but this is not a Lily/James/Dumbledore bashing fic. Yes, my plan is for Harry to eventually take over the wizarding world, and yes Lily, James, and Dumbledore will stand in his way, but that doesn't mean that I will bash on them. I believe that all characters, even villains, need to be complex, they can't just be one-dimensional. Additionally, Lily and James had a good reason of sticking Harry with the Dursleys as you will find out in this chapter. Does that mean Harry will forgive them? No. But that doesn't mean that Lily and James are stuck up freaks who only care about the BWL. And for that matter, Charles (Harry's twin) is not going to be a stuck up arrogant fool. He will be a powerful wizard, and I am not sure whether he will take Harry's side or not in the later parts of the story. And if you haven't figured it out by the title yet, "a snake in the lion's den", Harry will be in Gryffindor.

And thanks Teufel1987 for the help. I originally modeled Harry's elementary school after my own elementary school, which of course has a baseball field and not a cricket field.

Also, don't expect such frequent updates. Since it was Veteran's Day Weekend and I had no school today (Yes, I'm still in high school), I decided to throw another one out there. I try to keep one chapter ahead, and seeing as I have finished chapter four, I'm posting chapter 3.

**Okay, I am standing by with the plot that I have written, so if any of you have a problem with it, I suggest you leave. However, I have reread my work, and most of your concerns were valid, so I changed up this chapter.**

**Now, here is a quote from "Kuro" who did not write it with his real name (if he has one).**

**"So you are not bashing because you do not want to have your characters to have depth but your excuse for them leaving Harry with the Dursley's was he was a squib.**

**Congratulations on making characters with no depth and wasting everyones time with a author note that you failed to follow."**

**OK, I really should not be gracing this review with a response, but since I am particularly angry about it, I will write back.**

**Now, he says "You are not bashing because you do not want to have your characters to have depth", a semantically incorrect statement as I do want most of my charachters to have depth.**

**Additionally, he writes "Congratulations on making characters with no depth and wasting everyones time with a author note that you failed to follow". Now, I fail to see how excusing Lily and James for leaving Harry with the Dursleys takes away from character depth. Kuro, if you want to explain that to me in another review, then go right ahead. In addition, Harry is not excusing the Potters either. I understand that it is hard to understand that from what I wrote, but I explicitly said that he was pretending.**

**Here's my rant on flames. If you would like to leave a flame review, go ahead. Just at least put some thought into it and make sure you can back up what you are writing. Your review means nothing to me if it doesn't have anything to back it up. And I don't consider any of the reviews on my story "flames" except for Kuro's.**

**Next, Lily and James are going to be better than they are in standard Wrong BWL stories, but that doesn't mean I think they're completely innocent in this. I was going to put it in chapter 4, but I guess I should add it in here that they pretty much forgot about Harry after he was sent to the Dursleys. No one's perfect, and Lily and James surely are not going to be. Harry will hate them for what they did to him.**

**And -Addictive Label, I guess I'm really sorry about your parents, and I think that maybe since I've had a relatively good home life, I might not be able to know what Harry would do as well as you would. That being said, the thing is that Harry has an ultimate plan to screw over the Potters eventually. I had planned to show Harry's thoughts about the incident in the next chapter, but I guess that it would make more sense to put it in this chapter.**

**-emerald777, I honestly did not think about Dumbledore looking into the Dursleys' minds. I don't really have an explanation for that, let's just say Dumbledore was short sighted.**

**-hero of all, i didn't really understand what your point was in the second part of that review, but as for the first, to you and emerald777, Harry played his part perfectly, and Dumbledore will not suspect him just as Dumbledore did not suspect canon Harry.**

**Chapter 3**

The quiet and usually subdued residents of Number 5 Privet Drive, right across the street from Number 4 Privet Drive, had always noticed weird things going on in that house. It started when those horrid residents, the Dursleys, moved in across the street and they had to put up with the whining baby noises coming from their pampered son. But one night, as Mr. and Mrs. O'Neil, the residents of the aforementioned house across from Number 4 Privet Drive, were taking a walk outside, they noticed a most curious looking baby laid down on the front porch of that house. The baby's eyes were pure green, and its body seemed to have more wisdom than its years, but that was not what was so curious about it. It was curious because it had a small lightning shaped scar on its forehead, and it was wrapped in a luxurious silk blanket. Mr. and Mrs. O'Neil debated on whether they should take the kid in, as they knew that the Dursleys would not be good parents and that Mrs. O'Neil could not have children. But they eventually decided against it, for they did not even know who the child was.

As the child grew up across the street from the O'Neils, they learnt that they had made a bad decision. Harry Potter was the sweetest boy on the neighborhood; he was kind, polite, and nice, unlike that other ruffian of the Dursleys, Dudley. But the O'Neils were very observant and although Harry Potter had no visible signs of abuse, they could not miss the fearful glances that he shot at the Dursleys every time they entered the car. Oh he knew that Dudley had a gang of bullies that would antagonize Harry, but Vernon and Petunia Dursley were grown adults. They should have known better. And occasionally, very infrequently, they would hear a small scream that was soon stifled coming from inside the house of Number 4 Privet Drive. And they always saw Harry working on chores in the house, though unusually never saw Dudley.

Every time Harry showed signs of abuse, they resolved that they would do something about it if it got worse, but they always made excuses for doing something about it in the present. When Harry turned seven, Mrs. O'Neil almost freaked out after hearing another one of Harry's screams that was quickly stifled. This time, they promised themselves that they would do something if it got any worse. And yet, surprisingly, it never did. That year, the Dursleys stopped making him do chores all together and let him do whatever he wanted to. He also seemed to grow a backbone, and was no longer bullied by Dudley's gang. All in all, Harry was on the fast track to recovery. And yet, when Harry stared at the O'Neils on occasion, when they were out for a walk or in their car, they felt his searching gaze. They had, of course, recognized the change in eye color, but they had dismissed it as the doctors had, as heterochromia. But every time Harry stared at them, they felt like their minds were open books and that they were being read. And every time, they would feel a sense of guilt for not doing anything to help Harry.

But they watched as Harry gained weight, grew tall, and looked like a thirteen year old rather than an eleven year old. They wished that Harry was their son and that they had made the right decision all those years ago. But they didn't, and they would always have to pay the price for that.

It was a cold Saturday morning as Mr. O'Neil stretched as he got out of bed. Just because he did not work on Saturdays did not excuse him from his daily morning routine. At the middle-old age of 55, Mr. O'Neil was still active, and he woke up at six in the morning every day to keep active. He made a cup of coffee and walked outside to get the newspaper when he saw a most curious sight. A large owl, probably a barn owl of some sort, swooped down and delivered a letter to the Dursleys through the mail flap. He wondered why the hell an owl was delivering a letter, but decided not to worry about it, as it probably pertained to Mr. Potter. Compared to the stories he had usually heard about the boy, an owl delivering a letter was probably a daily occurrence. He chuckled to himself as he thought what the possible contents of the owl delivered letter were. Just because some considered him old didn't mean he had a sense of whimsy, as he thought about the letter being some sort of invitation to a magical school full of witches and wizards. Of course, he was right, but he did not know that. He picked up the newspaper and walked inside, paying no mind of the crazy owl.

* * *

An hour later, Harry stretched and got out of bed, excited as it was a Saturday and he could freely practice his magic in his room. He had grown in skill and ability as he discovered that his power was not limited to causing others pain and wind teleportation. In fact, he realized that his magic had very few limits as he could pretty much do whatever he wanted to with it. He could turn objects into other objects, create fire, create electric charge, and his personal favorite, fly. It was extremely hard at first as although he could levitate objects, he could not levitate his feet without his feet inverting and causing him to fall. Eventually, however, he figured out that he had to levitate his own head which would pull up the rest of his body without inverting it. This proved to be immensely challenging as Harry could not see his head and could not visualize what he was levitating. Eventually, when Harry was first able to levitate and was able to repeat it, with practice, flying became natural to him, and he constantly visited the fenced field behind the cricket field to practice his flying and other magical abilities.

At the fenced field, Harry made friends with a few of the snakes, and in return they taught him more about the magical world. At first, he had assumed that there were just a few wizards and witches in the world, who were isolated from the rest. However, he quickly learned of an entire magical society conveniently hidden from the rest of the world. Apparently, he would be inducted into that world at some point, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not find the entrance to the magical world immediately. He would just have to wait until someone showed him how to get in there. Apart from that, the snakes had little knowledge of what the boundaries of magic were, but Harry was exploring more.

Harry's magic had developed in other ways too. On the day of his ninth birthday, he stared at Uncle Vernon and suddenly got information on what he was thinking. He realized that he could find out what others were thinking using a form of magic that he denoted as mind magic, and realized that if he could get into others minds so quickly, others could get into his mind similarly. Somehow, he instinctually knew that meditation would block mind reading, so he meditated for two hours daily. His meditation was similar to his soul absorbance, and it worked in the same way. Soon, Harry found that his memory was improving. His already heightened memory was getting to a level of almost eidetic memory, where after looking at a long paragraph for only five seconds, he could recite the entire thing from his memory.

Harry put his thoughts aside as he went to go check the mail. Although he never got any mail, he usually read the newspaper that the Dursleys received daily, not that they read it. They got it just to appear educated, which meant a lot to them. He sifted through the mail when he saw a very curious letter. It seemed to be written on a piece of old parchment, like the type that was used in the 1700's, and it was addressed to him. He turned it over and read

Mr. H. Potter  
The Cupboard under the Stairs  
4 Privet Drive  
Little Whinging  
Surrey

Oddly enough, there was no stamp, meaning it was either hand delivered or was delivered in some way other than the post. He turned it back to the front and noted a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms: a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a large letter H.

He quickly tore the seal and opened the letter, intrigued as to what it might contain. He pulled out another old-looking piece of parchment and read

HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY  
Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE  
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)  
Dear Mr. Potter,  
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.  
Yours sincerely,  
Minerva McGonagall,  
Deputy Headmistress

He looked back inside the envelope and found another old-looking piece of parchment with a list of magical-looking ingredients. Well, this had to be it! This had to be his induction to the magical world. Though it was odd that the witches and wizards knew his address, even if they got the cupboard under the stairs wrong; although he did live there for a majority of his life. But, maybe he could use that to his advantage. He packed up all of his stuff and moved it back into the cupboard under the stairs. That way, the people who were supposed to induct him into the world would see that he grew up in such terrible conditions, and might kill the Dursleys, and would probably take him away from there.

Though it did say "we await your owl" and he had no clue what an owl referred to. Was an owl used to send messages, or was an owl what wizards called messages? Or was an owl something else entirely? Regardless, he had no clue how to reply back, as they had sent no return address. Shrugging aside his worry, as he was sure he would be inducted into the world soon, he excitedly reviewed all of the magic that he knew.

* * *

**********THAT MORNING IN DUMBLEDORE's OFFICE**********

"Lily, James, I'm glad you came. I have something urgent that I need to discuss with you," Dumbledore said.

"OK," Lily said. "What is it?"

"I think it would be best to show you," Dumbledore said. "I was looking through the list of Hogwarts invitees, you know, to make sure Charles was there."

"Of course," James said.

"Right. Well, in the process, I found something shocking that I think you need to see for yourself," he said.

"Charles didn't make it to Hogwarts?" Lily shrieked.

"No, no, Charles made it, Charles is fine. No, you will need to see this to believe it," Dumbledore said as he brought out the list of Hogwarts invitees. As Lily glanced down at the underlined name, she gasped in surprise. She saw "Harry Potter" underlined on the page.

A slow expression of dawning faded onto Lily's face as she remembered who Harry Potter was. It had been so hard to repress those memories of giving up her child, but now everything came back like a flood. She realized that she had never once gone to visit him, to see how he was doing at the Dursleys. Well who could blame her, she had Charles Potter, the boy who lived, as her son. But any normal parent would at least visit their abandoned son. She hoped he had a good home life, but did he? Then, she realized that all her anger could be traced back to one person: Albus Dumbledore. "YOU SAID HE WAS A SQUIB" she yelled.

"Calm down Lily. Yes, I did say he was a squib, but that's what my tests said." Dumbledore said.

Her next realization was that a wizard among the Dursleys would be in a bad position. "Oh Merlin. We sent our wizarding child to go live with the Dursleys! His first signs of accidental magic would have made them attack him. Please tell me it's not that bad." she pleaded.

"I'm afraid it is, Lily," Dumbledore said sadly. He handed her a copy of the letter sent to Harry. As she saw "the cupboard under the stairs" she lost it. She yelled angrily, she bawled with large tears coming from her eyes, and slowly she accepted it. James did not sit idly by either, as he was also actively yelling at Albus. Finally Albus calmed James down and both calmed Lily down.

"Now, I realize that we have made a terrible mistake," Dumbledore said. "But it does not do well to dwell on the past, and we must focus on what we can do to fix this terrible injustice to Harry. But let's start by visiting him immediately. Merlin knows Petunia and Vernon probably kept the letter from him."

"Yes," Lily said.

"Shall we," Dumbledore said, getting up and extending a hand to Lily and James each. They grabbed on as Dumbledore apparated them into Privet Drive.

* * *

Dumbledore knew exactly where Privet Drive was even after all those years. It was, after all, the place where Lily grew up and he managed to remember the small street after visiting it to drop Harry off to the Dursleys. He calmly walked over to the house and sharply knocked three times on the door.

Vernon opened the door saying "Why the ruddy hell are you opening the door this early in the morning," before stopping and seeing who it was. He gulped in fear at the sight of three angry wizards glaring at him. "Aren't you two supposed to be dead?" he asked to Lily and James.

"ALBUS, YOU TOLD THEM WE WERE DEAD" Lily yelled.

"Well it was the only way to get them to take Harry in," Dumbledore defended.

"Honey, calm down, the neighbors can hear you." James said.

"Wait a minute, if you aren't dead then why the hell were we stuck with the freak," Vernon said.

"We thought he was a squib, but it turned out that he isn't," Lily said.

"And what the ruddy hell's a squib?" Vernon asked.

"A non-magical," James explained "Who was born to magical parents."

"He is too a freak," Vernon said. "He's making us slaves to his freakish nature in our own home. We should have kicked him out a long time ago. The lousy good-for-nothing trollop does nothing."

Harry had come out of the cupboard and heard the conversation going on between Vernon and the three wizards. They seemed to be talking about him. He quickly walked over, eager to find out more.

"Harry? Is that you?" Lily said as Harry walked into the entry hall. She rushed over to him and embraced him in a hug. "Harry! Oh, at least those terrible relatives of ours didn't do any lasting damage."

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Harry, it's me, Lily. Your mother." Lily exclaimed. "Oh, you're so cute."

"You're alive?" Harry said shocked and a bit angry. He had lived his entire life under the assumption that his parents were dead and suddenly they just pop in here and try to rescue him from the Dursleys. He had to rescue himself from the Dursleys and where were they then? Where were they in all the hard parts of his life that they could just pop in when he had it set and dislodge everything. His hardened thoughts were interrupted by Lily, or his mother's soft voice.

"Yes Harry. I'm alive and I am going to take you out of this place." Lily said.

"Then why did you leave me with the Dursleys? Why did you abandon me?" Harry said with a perfectly innocent face and puppy-dog eyes. He had decided to learn the reason why his parents had abandoned him and then figure out what to do with them.

"Eh erm," The old wizard accompanying them spoke up, embarrassed. "That's actually my fault. You see, Harry, magic is real. And you are magical."

"Woah, really," Harry said excitedly. Wait, he needed to convince them that he did not know that he was magical. "No, but I'm just a freak. I can't be magical."

Vernon interrupted "He's lying. He knows he's magical; you know you're magical, you little freak. Tell them how you tortured us."

Harry broke out into soft sobs at this point, deciding to follow through with his original plan and treat his parents as he would any strangers. His plan was to show the magicals that the Dursleys attacked him. "Torture? You tortured me for all my life, and you have the nerve to say that I tortured you." he cried. He looked up at Lily, James, and Albus's collective disgusted expression. They were buying all of it.

"Harry, did the Dursleys ever beat you?" James asked slowly.

Harry shakily nodded, playing his role perfectly, as he lifted his shirt to show the still visible scars on his chest of Vernon's beatings. James, Lily, and Albus gasped at Harry's horrible treatment.

"You're a dead man, Dursley," James said.

Petunia chose that moment to calmly walk down the stairs. When she saw Lily and James downstairs, she froze. "L-lily, are you alive?" she said questioningly.

"I came here after ten years to see this happening to my son. I don't care if we're related, Petunia, you're going to die." Lily coldly said.

"Now, now, Lily," Dumbledore said, trying to fix things. "Let's not be too rash."

"Fine. You can spend the rest of your life in fucking prison." she yelled.

At this point, Dudley came down the stairs saying "I'm hungry, what's for breakfast."

"Harry, who is he?" James asked.

"H-he's Dudley, their son." Harry said, perfectly shakily. It was a bit hard to do because of his anger at them, but he remembered his self-taught meditation, and concentrating on acting the role of a scared abused child.

"Harry, has Dudley ever bullied you?" Lily asked, picking up on his purposefully placed clues.

"N-n-no," Harry said with a scared tone obviously lying.

"Harry, you can tell us the truth. None of these freaks are ever going to hurt you again," James said, comfortingly.

"Yes," Harry said. "He constantly beats me up at school, with his gang of bullies," he said again shakingly.

"Your entire family has antagonized my precious son. You're all going to get your just desserts," Lily said.

"No, you don't understand," Petunia pleaded. "He's evil. Pure evil. He keeps using his freakish powers."

"You mean accidental magic," Lily said. "That's not freakish, that's a sign of power. And family or not, I will be pressing charges against you and your fat oaf of a husband for child abuse and against your idiotic son for assault. Harry, pack your things and let's go."

At this point, Harry realized that he was screwed. He couldn't be seen as having nice things or his cover would be blown. Seeing as his parents could probably afford to pay for new stuff for him as they were very well dressed, and luckily, he was wearing one of his rattiest pajamas and shirts, he mumbled, staying in character "I don't have anything. Everything is Dudley's old stuff, and I don't want it."

"Really. Not even a single toy or a single article of clothing." James said, staring at the Dursleys with undisguised hate. "Come on, Harry, we're never going to this place again. We can get them sent straight to prison for life."

"Do you really mean it?" Harry said with wide eyes. This was exactly what he wanted to happen.

"Of course, Harry," James said. "You're our son, and even if you were a squib, I wouldn't ever let you go back to those filthy creatures." They walked outside the Dursley house.

"Wait, you were explaining something about me having magic, right. Is that true or is that a joke? Because I got some letter from this school." Harry said simply, because he had learnt that the cleverer you sound, the more people dislike you.

"Harry," Dumbledore said. "You do have magic. You see, the thing is that I tested both you and your brother-" Dumbledore said before he got cut off.

"I have a brother!" Harry exclaimed.

"Yes, Harry. But back to the main point. I tested both you and your brother of your magic levels, and the report said that you had no magic." Dumbledore said.

"So I don't have magic," Harry said, feigning sorrow, for he knew that he did have magic.

"No. You got a letter from Hogwarts, which automatically sends a letter out to any wizard or witch with more power than a squib, so you are magical." Dumbledore said.

"I'm - I'm magical," Harry said wondrously. "But I can't be. I'm just Harry,"

Dumbledore looked down at the boy with pride. Here Harry was, an abused child just like Tom, but he had no delusions of grandeur, and couldn't believe that he was special. Harry would go far indeed. "Well Harry, would you like a demonstration of magic?" Dumbledore asked benignly.

"Of course," Harry said.

"Such bravery. You would make a fine Gryffindor," Dumbledore said. He grabbed Harry's hand with one hand and grabbed James's hand, who was holding onto Lily, with the other. He apparated all four of them into his office at Hogwarts.

"Woah, that was so cool," Harry said. He mentally said "Not" as he could easily do this since he was seven. Although there was an incredibly uncomfortable sensation as if squeezing through a tube that Harry felt when traveling this way that he had never felt when wind-teleporting.

"See, Harry, that was magic. When you go to Hogwarts this fall, you will learn all sorts of magic," Dumbledore said. "But back to your concern that you do not have magic, Harry, have you ever done something that you cannot explain?"

Harry, being a novice to the wizarding world, assumed that all wizards and witches knew how to fly, for he had done it so easily and all wizarding children should be able to do it, and that he would be scoffed at if he didn't. So, he decided to tell them that. Of course, he had to lead into it first. "Well, there's this one thing," Harry said evasively, knowing he was baiting Dumbledore.

"What is it, Harry," Dumbledore asked.

"I think it would be better if I showed you," he said. He decided to only levitate instead of full on fly full-speed, as he was indoors, so he slowly lifted off the ground and levitated.

To say that Dumbledore was shocked would be an incredible understatement. Here was a boy who was beaten and abused, who knew nothing of the world of magic, and he had already accomplished something no other had done before him. Seeing their shocked faces, Harry quickly descended, saying "Is something wrong? Am I a freak here too?"

James was the first to recover. He patted Harry on the back, saying "That's my boy. Potters are always fliers, and if they don't have a broom, they find a way."

"He did that with accidental magic?" Lily questioned.

"Well it was hardly accidental," Harry said.

"You see, Harry, all wizards and witches use wands to perform magic. All wandless magic is deemed accidental, as it is uncontrollable and subject to emotions. The fact that you can control your magic into levitation without a wand is astounding. For example, I bet when you were frightened, you sometimes did magic." Dumbledore said.

Harry decided to hold off on showing any more of his magic until he figured out on what was normal and what wasn't. "Well, a bit, sir, but I don't think that I can do it again." he said.

"I see. And how long have you been able to fly?" Dumbledore asked.

"Since I was seven," Harry said.

"And you never used your powers to get a better life from the Dursleys?" Dumbledore asked. "I'm sure that your flight would intimidate them."

"No sir, never," Harry said. "I would never use my powers for evil."

"Very good, Harry." Dumbledore said, inwardly thinking that the new Potter would make an excellent servant for the light. "Now back to why you were sent to the Dursleys. Harry, you must understand that we did what we had to do."

"I understand sir," Harry said.

"Oh, I don't think you do," Dumbledore said. "You see, my tests showed that you were a squib, and you have to understand that squibs live a terrible life in the magical world. They are uneducated in muggle customs yet unable to perform for magical jobs, and they are constantly mocked for their ineptitude. That is why we decided to send you to the Dursleys. They were supposed to raise you like a son, but they failed in that duty," Dumbledore explained.

"I understand sir," Harry repeated. He was waging an internal battle in his head at the moment. Sure, the Potters did have a good reason to abandon him to the Dursleys, but that didn't mean they shouldn't have done a background check to make sure that they were good people. No, the Potters had failed him, a perfectly young and innocent child, and for that they would pay. The question was how? He would have to get for information from the Potter household before figuring out how to make them pay for their misdeeds. And that involved pretending that he forgave them.

"But you are a wizard, which means that we have made a terrible mistake. And for that, I am truly sorry. Harry, can you find it in your heart to forgive me," Dumbledore said.

"Of course, sir. You did rescue me from the Dursleys after all." Harry said simple-mindedly. It would only take a bit of intelligence to realize that Dumbledore's saving Harry from the Dursleys was nullified by Dumbledore's putting Harry there in the first place.

"Excellent Harry. It takes a strong man to forgive another's misdoings, and I believe that we are going to get along famously. Now, my name is Albus Dumbledore, and I am the headmaster of Hogwarts, the school which you got the letter from. Your parents, though you probably already know, are James and Lily Potter, and they will take care of you, much better than the Dursleys." Dumbledore said.

"Thank you sir," Harry said. "I'm so glad to be away from the Dursleys."

"How are we going to press charges, Albus," James asked. "We can't take them to wizarding court, and I don't know the schematics of muggle law-enforcement."

"Relax, James," Albus said. "I'll just confund a judge, slip them in a trial, and have them all sentenced to jail for life. It will be very quick and easy."

"Good idea," Lily said. "Well, Harry, do you want to go to your new home?"

"Yeah," Harry exclaimed like a small child.

"Okay, we are going to be using another form of wizarding travel, called a floo. Just follow me and you'll be fine," Lily said.

"Okay," Harry said. He followed Lily who was stepping into a fireplace. She picked up a piece of powder from the tray and demonstrated how to use a floo. With a loud "Potter Manor," she was off.

Harry soon followed her, doing exactly what she did, and soon found himself inside the largest home he had ever seen.


	4. Chapter 4: Meet the Family

**AN: Sorry for not updating in a while. I had to fix this chapter and then write chapter 5 to stay one chapter ahead like I want to, and I had a really busy week. Two Finite tests, a chem test, an apush test, an english test, surprisingly no physics test, and an english project. Well thank god it's thanksgiving, right. Wrong. Two words for you, college apps. KILL ME NOW**

**On another note, I'm learning a lot in chemistry, physics, bio, finite, and multivariable that can be applied to the technology in this story or the events that happen in this story. So yes, naturally I will be using it to explain some of the technology that will be going on in this story. No, it does not make a difference if you understand it or not, just thought I'd give it a try. I know that I once read this fic that had some pretty gnarly differential equations in their explanation, that I barely understood.**

**So anyways, I'm going to try to wrap up the pre-Hogwarts stuff by chapter 6, and my plan is for chapter 7 to be the train ride and sorting, and chapters 8-13 will be first year.**

**Additionally, Harry's first year will be set in 2005 so that his seventh year will be in 2012. I really can't keep up with the history of what was going on in 1991, so you're stuck with that, I guess.**

**Also, a lot of what I write on word is being unformatted and reformatted here, so I decided that I would be better off just using this site's inbuilt html text editor to write in. If anyone knows whether that is a problem, could you please tell me. I'm not having any problems so far, just saying.**

**Chapter 4: Meet the Family**

As Harry stumbled into the Potter manor, falling down for it was his first time using a floo, he took note of his immediate surroundings. When Lily, called out Potter manor, he imagined a big house from the name manor, but this was just plain extravagant. There was a huge chandelier in the entrance hall, and it sparkled as if it were made out of diamonds. And from the size of the entrance hall alone, he could tell that the house was extremely large.

Harry stepped out of the fireplace as he felt it heat up behind him, and he saw his father, James, come out of the floo. James quickly and professionally walked out, as if he had done it a hundred times before, which he probably had. James patted his son on the back as Harry gazed in wonder at the wonderful house, and said "Come on, I'll show you around. I know that this is all new to you, Merlin, an hour ago you were living with the Dursleys, and now your whole life is changing. But change is a part of life, Harry."

"Mr. Potter-" Harry said, before being interrupted.

"Harry, don't call me Mr. Potter. Call me dad, father, or any other variation of a fatherly word." James said.

"Do you really mean it?" Harry asked. "I've always wanted a father." He said, half truthfully, for as a child he had always really wanted a father. Although past the age of seven, he had stopped needing a father.

"Of course, Harry. Don't let anything those Dursleys did to you stop you from having a good life. I am your father, and you can call me whatever you want." James said.

"Dad, why did you say Merlin?" Harry asked, intrigued.

"Harry, Merlin was the most powerful wizard in the world. Out of respect to him, nowadays wizards and witches say Merlin to signify something incredulous, similarly to how Muggles say God." James explained.

"Oh, that makes sense," Harry said.

"Yes, well, here is the main hall," James said as they walked through the hall. They reached the living room, and James showed him to where he would be staying. James explained to him that Muggle technology could not work in magical homes after Harry asked why there was no TV, and showed him the kitchen. Soon they reached the bedrooms, and James showed Harry his new bedroom. And it was huge. There was a large king-sized bed in the middle, with a pool table and a foosball table on the side.

"Like it," James said. "Lily put these Muggle games in all the main bedrooms of the house, and they're so cool."

Harry soaked in his large room as he realized that from that point forward, he would never have to worry about money again. It seemed that the Potters were extremely well off and had no restraints to share their wealth with him. Although, one small concern was pulling him from enjoying his luxurious room. Dumbledore said he had a brother, and Harry needed to know whether his brother would be opposed to his presence in the household. With such wealth, the Potters had probably spoiled their child, and as an only child, he might not have been willing to share his parents' affections. So, Harry decided that now was the optimal time to meet his brother. "Dad, Dumbledore said that I had a brother, right. Can I meet him?"

James sighed, as he realized that Harry was too observant. Currently, Lily was in the process of explaining the entire thing to Charles, and he did not want to show Harry until Lily was done with her explanation. Deciding that the truth was the best option in this case, James said "I don't think that would be a good idea, Harry. Right now, Lily is talking to Charles about you, and I-" James said before being cut off by a loud shout.

"I HAVE A BROTHER," a loud voice yelled from downstairs.

'Oh great' Harry thought. It seemed that Charles would not take well to his presence.

James and Harry finished a friendly game of foosball, which James won by a landslide because Harry's foosball experience was limited to playing real life football in P.E. in school. Right after they finished their game, during which they got to know each other a little more, Lily called them downstairs for lunch, giving James the signal that she had explained everything to Charles. James offered Harry a chance to freshen up, which Harry gladly took, and he went to the bathroom to wash up.

Harry washed his hands and swished water on his face, when he stopped cold. There was definitely something off about his face, but he couldn't put his finger on it. His scar was there, his face seemed the same size, it seemed aligned as usual, wait. His eyes. Instead of their usual shade of green with small red circles, it was just... just green. It was uncanny how his eyes changed colors like that. Harry looked closer and realized that his eyes were not their usual shade of green, but it seemed that extremely tiny red particles were scattered throughout the aqueous humor of his eye, and they gave off the appearance of just standard nerves that appeared in one's eyes. In other words, his heterochromia was temporarily gone, and his eyes looked normal.

Shrugging the differences in his eyes off as being in a magical environment, Harry quietly followed James down the large set of elegant stairs in the Potter Manor and they were ushered into the dining hall. Immediately, something caught Harry's eye. A small humanoid creature about three fourths the size of the average human was setting the table, bringing out plates of food. The creature had extremely large ears, wrinkled skin, and almost comically huge eyes, the size of large light bulbs. Harry could not figure out why, but for some reason the creature seemed familiar. Not the individual creature, no, the class of creatures itself. It was almost as if he had seen one before... but where? Oh, right, he used to live with the Potters.

Noticing Harry's confusion, James quickly explained. It seemed that those creatures were house-elves, and were prevalent in all major wizarding homes. He explained that house-elves had to be bound to a house in order to prevent them from going insane, and that the Potter family had 14 house elves. James's explanation was cut short by a loud thud. It seemed that someone was coming through the back door. Harry opened the dining hall door to see Lily Potter and someone who could only be the son of Lily and James.

While Harry had dark black hair, which both James and Lily did not seem to have, the other child, Charles as James said, had dark red hair, much like his mother. His skin was a slightly darker shade than Harry's, which could probably be attributed to the extra time he spent in the sun. He was about three centimeters shorter than Harry, who was currently pushing 158 centimeters, which was much taller than the national average, but Charles was slightly more muscled in his arms and legs. Their eyes were the major point of disparity though. While Harry's eyes were green and piercing, Charles's eyes were hazel but seemed to have a hardened tone to them. In addition, Charles too had a scar on his face: a jagged ill-formed V. Harry wondered whether they had gotten their scars together; after all, it was extremely unlikely that their scars would be a result of different accidents. Or maybe all magicals had scars, but Lily and James didn't have them. This was going to be another point of inquiry.

"Hi" Charles nervously said. "I'm Charles."

'Wait' Harry thought. 'No signs of any resentment toward me, and no signs of any sort of spoiled nature from Charles. Although I haven't gotten to talk to him much yet, I can guess that his outburst was purely based on the news that he had a new brother. I suppose that makes him a little boisterous, but not bad per say.'

"Hello Charles," Harry said. "I'm Harry, but I think you already know that."

"Okay," James said. "Now, why don't you two get to know each other, while Lily and I will be right back." They walked out of the kitchen and floo'd to Diagon Alley, whatever that was, which was odd for the house-elves had just set the table.

"So Charles," Harry awkwardly began. "What do you like to do for fun?"

"Oh, I like to fly," Charles said. "But I'm sure that since you lived with Muggles you don't know how, right."

"Yeah sure," Harry said evasively. Since his flying skill was so odd around Dumbledore, Lily, and James, Harry decided not to show it again so easily. "The Dursleys were the worst."

"Hang on. You lived with the Dursleys." Charles said.

"Yes," Harry replied.

"Mum's relatives who hate magic?" Charles asked.

"Yes," Harry said.

"Oh" Charles said, deflated. "So," he said quietly as if whispering a secret. "How bad was it?"

"It wasn't too bad," Harry said.

"Yeah right," Charles snorted. "Mum made sure that we never went there, because she says that her sister completely hates magic. Apparently they had a big falling out after mum married dad. I bet they did something stupid to you like locked you up in a closet."

"Cupboard actually," Harry said.

"Seriously," Charles said, in awe.

"Yeah," Harry said. "I lived in a cupboard under the stairs for most of my life."

James and Lily took that moment to come back inside after their visit to Diagon Alley, holding two wrapped parcels. "We're home," James called out.

"YOU LEFT HARRY WITH THE DURSLEYS" Charles yelled to Lily and James, walking into the entrance hall of the manor. "THE PEOPLE WHO YOU NEVER LET ME VISIT BECAUSE THEY HATE MAGIC."

"If you recall, Charles," James calmly said, "We left Harry with the Dursleys because we thought he did not have magic."

"But why did we never visit him?" Charles asked. "Didn't you suspect the Dursleys could be maltreating him? Don't you care about YOUR SON?"

Harry's respect for Charles grew as he watched Charles berating his own parents. It seemed that Harry's initial impression of Charles was far too inadequate. Not only was Charles not spoiled, but he openly accepted having a brother all of a sudden and was able to turn it around on their parents. And he was saying all of the things that Harry would have said to the Potters had he not wanted to keep his innocent scared kid act up. Yes, Charles would make a good ally indeed.

"Of course we care, Charles," Lily said, her eyes watering. "We cared so much that we suppressed our love toward Harry. We realized that he would have a far better life away from us, away from magic, away from what we represented. We decided that he could never be introduced to us because he would want to know why we left him, and we just wouldn't be able to get through the explanation of what a wizard or witch was and then tell him that this whole new world of powers was cut off to him because he did not have magic. We thought he would have a good life at the Dursleys; after all, how were we to know that they would mistreat him?" And it was true. Dumbledore's letter explicitly told the Dursleys that Harry was a squib, and perfectly explained what a squib was. For his first week at the Dursleys, Harry was not maltreated the slightest; although the Dursleys did not shower him with as much affection as they did Dudley, they still gave him a bedroom in their house and had the basic human decency to not mistreat him. But then, one week later, when Vernon saw Harry summon a bottle of milk to his mouth, he completely lost it. He forced Harry to live in the cupboard under the stairs, where Harry remained for as long as he could remember.

"Still, that doesn't excuse you. You could have gone there under dad's invisiblity cloak to see how Harry was doing without showing yourself to him. There are so many things you could have done to give Harry a better life. Did you know he lived in a cupboard under the stairs for most of his life?" Charles said unrelenting.

"Yes, Charles," James said. "And that is our fault. We failed Harry as parents, and we fully admit to it. We're sorry, Harry. And I know you can never forgive us for what we put you through, but just know that we're sorry."

Harry quickly mumbled "I forgive you," even though he didn't, when James stopped him.

"No, Harry, you cannot forgive us, for we must first forgive ourselves, which Lily and I can never do. You are our son, and we should have never left you with the Dursleys even if you did not have magic." James said.

"Then what were you going to do?" Harry said rationally. "Leave me here, where I would be ridiculed as a squib before being forced to accept a low-end position as a squib. No, you made the right decision." Of course, Harry realized that they should have made sure he was fine at the Dursleys, but did not bring it up to keep his totally forgiving and innocent act up.

"Regardless Harry, we should have checked up on you at the least. Charles is right, and we are sorry. But, we brought you two gifts," he said, holding out the parcels he had brought. One was shaped like a box, the other was shaped like a long thin item. "Well go on, open them," James said.

Harry unwrapped the long gift first to see a large oddly-shaped broom. It was oddly shaped because its handle was not uniform; its handle had small bends to it. Charles gasped and said "Wicked, it's a nimbus 2000, just like mine."

Harry stared at James questionably, and said "You want me to clean the house or something?"

"No, Harry. In the wizarding world, brooms are used for flying." James exclaimed. "Which goes along with our second gift for you." He drew out a book-shaped box, and Harry was almost sure that it contained a book in it. He opened it up, and surprise surprise, it was an extremely large book titled "An introduction to the wizarding world".

"Why don't you read that, Harry," James said. "It has all you need to know about the wizarding world, and it will explain it much better than we can. You can fly on your broom later. You should go to your new room while reading it too."

"Okay," Harry said, as he went up the stairs eager to learn about the wizarding world.

"Wait, what about lunch?" Charles asked.

"Oh yes," Lily said. "Harry come down for lunch, honey."

Harry walked back down the huge flight of stairs and quickly ate his sandwich, eager to read his book. He noticed that Lily and James shared a glance.

"Harry, how much did you get to eat at the Dursleys?" James asked.

Harry decided to tell them what he did before he used his powers against the Dursleys. "I usually got a slice of bread for breakfast, and one for dinner. But I was usually able to sneak some food during the night, as my cupboard was near the fridge."

"Oh," James said. Harry certainly did not look underfed, so the food he ate at night must have been enough to cover for the food he missed during the day. When Harry was done eating, a house-elf that did not look exactly like the first one took it, presumably to wash it. Harry raced upstairs, eager to read his book.

Harry got upstairs and quickly opened the book. He saw that it was organized into chapters with chapter one: terminology, chapter two: general wizarding history, chapter three: wizard colloquialisms, chapter four: magical creatures, chapter five: limits of magic, and so on and so forth. Eager to learn what sorts of magic were normal and which were not, he flipped the book open to chapter one.

* * *

Two hours later, Harry finished reading the 14 chapter book detailing the wizarding world, and had at least some sort of knowledge of the wizarding world. He was heavily disappointed to learn that not only was flying abnormal, but all of the magic he could do was also abnormal in the wizarding world. What he called magic, other wizards called accidental magic, and they said it could only be activated by emotions or need. But he was able to activate his magic without emotions, as evidenced by his levitating. Instead of channeling their magic through their bodies, like Harry did, wizards used wands as the focal points of their magic. Harry was not sure whether he would decide to use a wand or not; it depended on whether he got any power from using a wand as at the moment he did not need a wand to do whatever he wanted to do.

Also, wizards had no clue what wind-teleportation was, and instead used apparition, which basically worked as a switching spell between you and where you wanted to travel. Harry's wind teleportation was essentially teleportation through the wind. He would disperse in one area, and re-appear in another by actually converting all of his molecules to air and reconverting them back to his body. In addition, the magical world was extremely behind the newly-christened Muggle world. Harry noted that most of the technologies used to create things possible at that moment were made through war. If magicals had weapons that they carried around with them at all times, they would have no need for the higher technologies offered by Muggle world such as guns, which would have delayed the industrial revolution. In fact, Harry was not even sure that the magical world was industrialized. It seemed that every one of their brooms they made was hand-crafted by individual broom-smiths; well that was for the good brooms of course. Other un-food-related goods included clothes, and wands, each of which was hand-crafted, though the fabric was produced by magical means. It seemed to Harry that wizards had no need to industrialize; the marginal efficiency that using machines would give wizards was not worth the upkeep costs seeing as with magic, those chores were extremely easy. Since magic was essentially limitless to wizards and witches, they did not have to worry about using it for household tasks or industrialization. Of course, this had the negative effect of not having cell phones or email, and having to use "floo-calls", which seemed extremely uncomfortable as you had to stick your head in a fireplace in order to floo-call. It also had negative effects of the lack of television sets, computers, and most importantly, the internet, arguably the greatest Muggle invention of all time. Wizards had to resort to getting information through unorganized bookstores or hearing about it through gossip.

In addition, it seemed that the average wealth for members of the wizarding world was much higher than the average wealth for regular people, or Muggles. With the going conversion rate of 100 pounds equals one galleon, it seemed that wizards had it made. The average monthly earning per household was 80 galleons per month, which was equivalent to 8,000 pounds per month, an extremely high figure. Yet there was a disparity between the prices of common items and the prices of magical items in the magical world. While common items such as food items went at low rates, probably due to wizards selling food grown by house-elves, or day-to day clothing went at low rates, magical items which had no parallel in the real world went at extremely high rates. For example, a wand would cost about 7 galleons, which was equal to 700 pounds, yet it was necessary for every young wizard to get a wand and a replacement if broken. In addition, racing brooms were very expensive, with the cheapest, a Cleansweep 7, going for at least 15 galleons. Harry's new Nimbus 2000 costed probably 50 galleons, an equivalent of 5000 pounds; in other words, a small fortune for a child. And the Potters seemed to be throwing money around readily. Harry realized that he must have come from a very rich house. And the Potters were mentioned in Harry's book, if briefly, as being one of the twelve biggest houses in all of magical England. While it did not give a numerical value of the Potter assets, Harry quickly realized that the Potters were well off.

The next thing that shocked Harry was the monetary system, although it seemed to make sense to Harry the more he thought about it. There were 17 sickles in a galleon and 29 knuts in a sickle, which were numbers that were extremely hard to work with. And yet, it all made sense because a galleon was literally worth its value. A galleon in the magical world had enough gold to be worth 17 sickles, and a sickle had enough silver to be worth 29 knuts. Harry assumed that the values were standardized at one point to be 10 knuts per sickle and 10 sickles per galleon, or some other reasonable ratio, but the relative value of gold must have increased compared to silver, and the value of silver must have increased compared to bronze, making the ratio change. But this meant that there was no inflation in the wizarding world, except for the changing values of bronze, silver, and gold. It also meant that if enough gold was found incredibly quickly, the galleon would crash, the downside to having a worth-based system. But wizards were able to live a peaceful life without industrializing by using magic, for the heavy galleons that normal people would have traded for bills or credit cards could just be lifted with featherlight charms that each galleon was equipped with, and the massive space that each galleon took could be remedied with space compressing charms. Wizards were geniuses when it came to taking the easy way out, even better than Muggles.

Harry walked down the stairs, knowledgeable about the basic magics used in the wizarding world. He bumped into James on the way down, who was sizing him up for some reason.

"Well Harry, you certainly don't have a seeker's build. No, you're too tall for that. And you won't be a great keeper either; no, you're much too thin. You can't be a beater for the same reason, which just leaves chaser. You have a great build for a chaser," James exclaimed. "Just like Charles."

Harry knew all about Quidditch, having just read about it in his book. Quidditch was basically the equivalent of football in the Muggle world; it was the most important magical sport. Though there were a few other sports, such as gobstones, Quidditch was key through the magical world. Kids zoomed around on brooms attempting to be future Quidditch stars at some point, and even non-professional Quidditch player adults took pleasure in flying on brooms. Since the magical population was only about 70 million people worldwide, compared to the 7 billion non-magicals wordwide, the number of people who could be deigned celebrities was only one hundredth of the non-magical population, and most of the celebrities in the magical world were in fact Quidditch players. In the English circuit alone, there were 22 Quidditch teams, and that did not even include Ireland.

Speaking of celebrities, Harry learned that Charles, his brother, was one of the most famous celebrities in the magical world. Since his defeat of someone named "you-know-who" (Harry didn't know who), when he was one year old, Charles had been incredibly famous. It seemed that a "dark lord" named "you-know-who" who had about 500,000 followers was extremely powerful and was threatening to take over the wizarding world. 500,000 followers was a phenomenal number compared to the 70 million people in the magical word, and You-Know-Who, whoever he was, had structured his empire brilliantly. He had created leadership figures in all of the magical countries who were subordinate to him, and had almost taken over England, posing to strike toward the rest of the world. Charles's stopping of You-know-who was a cause of celebration throughout the entire world, and Charles was a celebrity in England. To be that young and to be a celebrity and still be so courteous ... Harry really had gained a lot of respect for Charles.

"Well Harry," James said. "You wanna learn how to fly?"

"Sure," Harry agreed. James brought him outside the house, where Charles was waiting, holding Harry's new broom. They walked out from under the shade, and what Harry saw took his breath away. It was a huge Quidditch stadium complete with goalposts and stands for spectators. They entered the enormous stadium and James handed Harry his broom.

"So, Harry," Charles said, "You're going to want to hold your broom like this and kick off," he explained the proper way to grip a broom.

Harry followed Charles's careful instructions and kicked off the ground on his broom, only to lose control. His broom jerkily made its way up, as if it were controlled by an entity other than himself, and quickly bucked him off from 30 feet up in the air. Harry, realizing that he had to show his ability of flight now in order to save himself, slowly landed on the ground, his broom falling quickly next to him.

"Harry," Charles screamed. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Harry said. "I'm fine, I just don't know what happened. It seemed that the broom had a mind of its own."

Charles shot him a sympathetic glance, and said "Well it's a good thing that your accidental magic saved you. I don't think that you should be using a broom again for quite a while. Some people have the flying gift, but not everyone can do it. But hey, mum's pants at flying too."

"Actually Charles," Harry said, levitating himself, figuring that if he had already shown Lily, James, and Dumbledore his secret, he might as well show Charles who he trusted more than them. And it was not like flight was his biggest secret; it was just a fun past time of his. "I'm actually not too bad at flying. I just can't seem to use that darn broom that you all use." he said.

"Woah, sick," Charles exclaimed. "You're doing that with accidental magic!"

"Well, it's hardly accidental," Harry said. "But yeah, in general, I'm not using a wand."

"Wicked," Charles said. James ran over.

"Wait Harry, are you saying that you can actually control your flight without a broom?" James said.

"No, I can't," Harry lied, realizing what a big deal it was to be able to fly without a broom after reading his introduction to the Wizarding world book. "I just levitate, that's all."

"Oh," James deflated. "Well that's still pretty cool. But, if you haven't inherited my flying, then you must have inherited your mum's brains."

"Yeah, I was pretty bored throughout elementary school," Harry said. "It was so easy." Harry learned that wizards did not learn any math or science beyond basic arithmetic in their primary schools, which were non-magically based. After primary school, they basically ignored any mention of a non-magical subject (besides English) and the only history they learnt was magical history. They knew nothing of the current events in the Muggle world, and they knew little to no non-magical education. Supposedly "educated men" in the wizarding world knew various theories of spell creation and performance, and did not concern themselves with muggle maths and sciences. In fact, ninety five percent of the non-Muggle born population did not even know what a cell phone was.

"Well, that was a let-down," Charles said. "Oh well, Quidditch isn't for everyone. Hey, do you want to go to my friend's house? I'll introduce you to him."

"Cool, what's his name," Harry said.

"Anthony Black, but we like to call him Tony for short. He has a twin sister who's kind of annoying, but he's an okay person himself." Charles said.

"Okay, sure," Harry agreed.

"You know, you're different Harry," Charles reflected.

"How so?" Harry asked.

"You're the first person, besides Tony of course, not to try to get into my good graces because I'm the boy-who-lived. I'd rather just be an average kid than be the boy who lived." Charles explained.

"Yeah, I get that people would treat you differently," Harry said. "But hey, since we're brothers, we might as well be friends too, and I don't kiss up to any of my friends."

"Good," Charles said. "Well, wanna go to Tony's house now?"

"Sure," Harry agreed.

"Hey dad, we're going to Tony's house," Charles yelled.

Just then the floo activated and Lily stepped out. "Mum, we're going to Tony's house," Charles said.

"Oh good," Lily exclaimed. "Have fun over there."

"Cool, Harry. Let's go," Charles said.

Harry followed Charles through the floo, where he yelled Black Manor and in a flash was off. As Harry stumbled to follow Charles, he realized that Charles was one of the few people who he had met so far who he actually respected. Charles was different, in a good way.


	5. Chapter 5: The Blacks

**Yeah, sorry for not updating for a while now, real life got in the way again. I had a really busy week, which is ironic because it was the week after Thanksgiving. Also, I just got a ps3 on Black Friday, and I admit that I spent more than one hour playing MW3 on it this week.**

**-Tefuel1987, My impression of James was based on the movies, and I forgot that in the books he was described as having black hair. I'm just going to stick with him having brown hair, but to be honest, it's not going to come up again in the story. And I agree with your point about the different cultures and forwardness, and the magical culture did not industrialize because it did not need to, much like the Chinese. In no way would I say that the wizarding world was backwards from the muggle world. To your point about magical sciences and technology, yeah I totally agree. What I meant to say, and I don't think that I stressed this enough, was that wizards were ignoring Muggle science and technology, not magical. And you have to admit, using a cell-phone, or in the 1990's, a telephone, is much more convenient than sticking your head through a fire-place.**

**Oh, and to your review last chapter about Lily and Severus not being friends, just a heads up, Snape plays a very minor role in this fic, if he even shows up. Lily will be the Hogwarts potions professor and Snape won't be at Hogwarts. But the backstory will be the same: Snape and Lily grew up in the same town, they were friends, they got to Hogwarts, Snape called Lily a mudblood, Snape became a death eater, Snape loved Lily. However, eventually, when Lily survived the attack, Snape realized that he did not love Lily. He'll still be a spy for Dumbledore, he just won't be a teacher at Hogwarts. And to be honest, if canon Dumbledore were a competent headmaster, he would have fired Snape a long time ago.**

**-Ressan, well, I really cannot write something if I cannot rationalize it out, and I cannot for the life of me explain how Voldemort was able to take over an entire country with max 25 followers. I mean sure, intimidation tactics would do something, but it really doesn't make sense. I remember reading something about JK Rowling saying that there were 1000 wizards at Hogwarts, and if we go with those numbers and that Hogwarts is the only magical school in the UK (It isn't in my fic by the way), assuming an average life capacitancy of 100 years (After all Dippet lived to be 400 something), that's about 14,000 wizards and witches in Great Britain. Let's assume that 10% are competent enough to fight Death Eaters; we're now at 1400 wizards and witches. Now I get that it's possible for Voldemort to take over the country through fear, as if he went on raids killing people, others would fear him and would not stand in his way. However, we're talking about 1400 freaking people to the 25 that were shown in canon. Even if you add magical beasts, it's not going to work.**

**In my AU, the wizarding population will be much bigger; about 1 percent of the worldly population. So that's 650,000 people in magical UK alone. Also, Voldemort doesn't want to limit himself to magical England; he wants to take over the wizarding world, and that's like 70 million people. So I figured a good number would be 500,000 followers, with specific leaders in every magical country.**

**Yeah, sorry for going on a rant there, but that was a big thing in canon that I really didn't get. I mean, I wouldn't consider it a plot hole or anything, but really if 50 wizards out of 1400 competent enough to fight death eaters banded together and fought them off, then Voldemort would be finished.**

**Now, addressing Tony and Alex (his sister), they are going to be eleven years old at the start of the story. Now I know that canon Sirius didn't get married, and I'm not planning on addressing how Sirius and his wife got together.**

**Okay, now in this chapter, there will be references to the game Texas Hold'Em. I didn't want to explain it all out in the chapter, but they will be playing at Hogwarts, so if you don't know the rules, I suggest that you either learn, or skip all of the poker parts. It's not really a major plot element, just a character development device, and it would take up way too much space to show all of the rules of Texas Hold'Em, so I decided not to include them in the story.. I would post a link to it, but doesn't let you. I even tried to change the html source code, but it still didn't let me, so just search it up on wikipedia or wherever else you want to find it. (wiki/Texas_hold_%27em#Rules)**

**Finally, just a heads up, this chapter is a bit longer than the others because it is actually a combination of chapter 5 and 6. I wanted to stick to the schedule that I had put in my author's note in chapter 4, so I had to make chapter 5 much longer. Because of this, I don't have chapter 6 ready, so you'll have to wait a bit for me to finish chapter 6 and chapter 7.**

**Thank you to everyone for your reviews, and feel free to review or PM me at any time.**

**Chapter 5: The Blacks**

As Harry threw floo powder in the fireplace, shouting "Black Manor", another conversation was going on in the dining hall of Potter manor. Lily and James were discussing how they should deal with the new addition to their family.

"Well, he's obviously been abused, Lily. Of course he's going to be nice to us, after all, we're the first adults to ever show him kindness." James said. "Hogwarts starts in a month and a half, so we only have that much time to show him that we love him."

"But how, James?" Lily asked. "We can't shower him with gifts; Harry's a smart boy and he'll know what we're up to. Also, I don't think that showering him with gifts will build a good parent-child relationship."

"I guess the only thing we can do is treat him right and shower him with affection. We'll let him come to us, and we'll always be there for him. While Harry's an abused kid, he was able to befriend Charles, which is a good sign. I'm pretty sure that he had a few friends at his elementary school, so I don't think that the time he spent at the Dursleys would make him a hollow person. No, I think that Harry can easily recover from this, and it's our duty to make sure that he can." James said.

"True, and the good thing about Harry is that he's strong. He was able to live with those monsters that I unfortunately have to call relatives, and he had to endure abuse." Lily said.

"Yeah, Lily," James said. "Well, let's see how he interacts with Tony and Alex. We can decide what to do with him after that, but I have a feeling that Harry will be fine on his own. He's easy to befriend, and he doesn't have a mean bone in his body, and I'm sure that we can get along with him by the end of summer."

"I just can't believe that we forgot him," Lily said.

"I know Lily," James agreed. "But the past is the past, and there is no use dwelling on it. We must focus on the future, and what we can do to help Harry."

"Yes James," Lily said. "But I agree, I think that Harry will be fine. It's just that he's at the point in his life when he doesn't need parents as much, and we missed out on the part of his life in which he needed us. What can we do to help him now?"

"We'll do whatever we can, Lily-flower. So, how was your talk with Sirius and Amelia?" James asked.

"Oh, it was fine," Lily said. "Sirius and Amelia were totally understanding, and they know how to deal with Harry. I'm sure that they will get along fine."

"Yeah, I'm glad that's not a problem. Can you believe that this morning we were only worried about Charles getting into Hogwarts and now we realized that we have a whole new kid that we have to raise. I mean don't get me wrong, I think we'll do a good job with Harry, but it's just mind-boggling." James said.

"It totally is," Lily agreed. "It totally is," she repeated softly to herself.

* * *

The first thing that Harry noticed when he entered Black Manor was how new the place looked. Although the Potter manor was also grand and elegant, it had a sort of old feudal theme to it, while the building designs of Black Manor showed even at a glance that Black Manor was built very recently. The style of architecture was a very modern, and the decorations and furniture were very modern too. Harry quickly followed Charles from the entrance hall of the Black Manor into the main hall, which reminded Harry of pictures he saw online of the house of Dwyane Wade, a famous American basketball player. Harry had already changed into some of Charles's casual clothes, so he fit right into the setting of the new house, but Harry wondered why everything in the wizarding world was so extravagant and rich. He knew that the average wizard made about double than the average Muggle from the book, but the house had to have cost at least 100,000 galleons.

"Alright, Harry, come this way," Charles lead. Harry followed Charles up the main staircase of the house, and knocked on one of the many rooms upstairs. "It's Tony's room," he explained. "Padfoot, Tony's dad, lets us chill here whenever we want, so he gave us access to the floo. But you can't floo to most private homes unless you have permission, or if you can, it takes you right outside the house so that you have to properly ring the doorbell."

"Oh," Harry said.

The door was opened by a small boy wearing a long sleeve casual sweater, with a 'B' on it. "Hey Charles," Tony greeted. "And you must be Harry."

"Yeah, how do you know that?" Harry asked after getting a good look at Tony. Tony was about twenty centimeters shorter than Harry, which made him about average for his age (eleven), yet shorter than Harry and Charles by a lot. He was thin, but not too thin, and he seemed like a push-over physically. His eyes, though, told a different story. They were bright blue and seemed to be alive, minutely changing shades every moment. His skin was rather pale, and his hair was dark black.

"Oh, my parents told me that you were coming over. They said that you were raised by Muggles. Is that true?" Tony asked.

"Yeah, I was raised by Muggles," Harry said. "But how did your parents find out?"

"Oh, your mum came over, I think." Tony said. "Hey Charles, do you like this shade?" he asked.

"No mate, I like your pink eyes. They really freak people out." Charles said. 'Pink eyes?' Harry thought. 'What is he talking about?'

"As you wish," Tony said. Harry gasped as he saw Tony's eyes rapidly change color from blue to vibrant pink.

"How'd you do that?" Harry asked.

"Oh, I'm a partial metamorphagus. My cousin's a full one, she can change all of her body parts, while I can only change my eyes." Tony explained.

"And metamorphagus means?" Harry asked.

"Oh yeah, I forgot, you were raised by Muggles. A metamorphagus is a wizard or witch who can change his or her body parts. I can only change my eye color, but my cousin Tonks can change all her body parts.

"Really," Harry said, intrigued. "Are there any limitations?"

"Yeah there are," Tony explained. "The only things that metamorphagi (that's plural for metamorphagus) can change are size and color. Even Tonks, my cousin, can't grow a - well, you know."

"Oh," Harry said. "Well that's pretty cool. How do you know if you're a metamorphagus?"

"There's no easy way to tell, because metamorphagus changes are based on natural magic, which can be confused with accidental magic, without a wand. Basically, if you can control it, it's natural magic," Tony explained. "Other examples of natural magic include animagus transformations, which means turning into an animal, or apparition, which means traveling from one place to another. See, some people think they're metamorphagi when it's just their accidental magic doing it; they can't control the transitions."

"Interesting," Harry said. He was almost sure that he was at least a partial metamorphagus like Tony; after all, his eyes did change color after being in a nonmagical environment. "Was being a metamorphagus hard to learn?"

"Yeah, at first it was near impossible to make just a simple change. But then it got easier with practice." Tony explained.

"What do you usually think about when switching?" Harry asked.

"Well, for me, since all I change is color, I think of a color or a pattern of colors. Like this," He said. Immediately his eyes switched to a complicated pattern of blues, pinks, and greens.

"Wicked," Harry exclaimed. "Can I try?" he asked. "I remember once that the color of my eyes changed color when I was eight."

"Sure, why not," Tony said. "Though the odds of you being a metamorphagus are insanely low. There are only twelve in all of magical England. But partial metamorphagi are much more common. There are at least 500. Chances are, it was just your accidental magic. But why don't we start off simple for you. It's easiest to switch your eye color to black, because that's what you visualize easiest when you close your eyes," Tony explained. "So close your eyes," he said.

Harry followed the instruction.

"Now imagine your entire world filling up with the black you see around you. Visualize it, then condense it all into your eyes," he said. Harry followed Tony's instructions again.

"Good. Now, if it worked, you should have tiny black circles in your eyes. Now open your eyes," he said.

Harry opened his eyes, and Tony gasped in shock.

"What? Did it work?" he asked.

"Your eyes are perfectly black. I couldn't get that for a month!" Tony exclaimed.

"Woah, cool," Harry said. "So does this mean I'm a metamorphagus?" he asked. This must have explained why his eyes changed when he entered a magical environment.

"Well, you're definitely partial. Most partial metamorphagi can only change their eyes," Tony explained.

"Oh, that's cool. Now, how do I change my eyes back?" he asked.

"Well close your eyes and do the same thing you did with black except with green. Eventually, you'll be able to change your eyes pretty readily. Just don't change them to red," Tony said.

"Why not?" Harry asked after changing his eyes back.

"Well, your eyes eventually become red after you practice the dark arts too much, which is why wizards don't trust those with red eyes," Tony explained.

Harry wondered why his eyes were red. They turned red right after he had sensed his magical core and absorbed the black ... could that be why? He didn't practice the dark arts as far as he knew. "What are dark arts?" he asked.

"The dark arts are a different form of magic," Tony explained. "Both light magic and dark magic can be used for good or for evil, but dark magic changes you. It makes you more cruel, even if you're using it for good."

"Oh. Well then, I'll stay away from that type of magic," Harry said.

"Yeah, you probably should," Tony said. "But man, this is unbelievable. I was always the only partial metamorphagus, now there's another one."

"You think that's unbelievable," Harry said. "Yesterday, I was living with terrible Muggle relatives, a slave. Now, I'm free, in a magical world. I have to constantly pinch myself to keep from thinking it was all a dream." There was a long pause after this statement, which Harry decided to interrupt.

"So," Harry said. "What do you guys usually do?"

"Well, we sometimes play Quidditch, but I don't think you want to do that," Charles said.

"No," Harry agreed.

"We also play exploding snap, do you want to play that?" Tony asked.

"Sure, I'll give it a go," Harry said.

"Okay," Tony said, getting out his deck of cards. "The game is simple. There's one exploding card, and you don't know which one it is. Every two cards have a specific and different letter or number on it, and there are 51 cards in the game. If you have two of the same card, you throw them in the discard pile, meaning that someone is going to get stuck with the final card. Then, the card explodes. Every turn you take a card at random from another player."

"So it's like old maid," Harry said.

"I don't know what that is, but sure," Tony replied.

"Old maid is basically the same game, but without the explosion. It's a Muggle game," Harry explained.

"Oh," Tony said.

"So, what other ways are there to play exploding snap?" Harry asked.

"What do you mean?" Charles said.

"Well, muggle card games use a 52 card deck, and there are many different types of games." Harry replied. "I thought that there were multiple wizard card games too, is there really only one?"

"Well, yeah," Charles said.

"It's a bummer that I don't have a deck of cards. There are so many cool card games that you can play with a Muggle deck of cards." Harry said.

"Well then, I have a good idea. Let's go to a muggle store, buy a deck of cards, then you'll show us how to play," Tony suggested.

"A muggle store," Charles said. "Really? Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Well, it's in the Muggle world," Tony said. "And we've always wanted to go."

"Seriously, you've never been to the Muggle world?" Harry asked.

"No, we just floo wherever we need to go." Charles said. "Mum took us there a couple of times, but stopped when dad almost got run over by a car."

"I see," Harry said. "Well, there's a first time for everything, and I need to show you guys what you're missing. Come on, we can go to an amusement park too. I've always wanted to go to one."

"Now?" Charles asked. "It's 3:30 in the afternoon."

"Oh yeah. Well, we should at least go into the Muggle world for some time, hang out there. Thing is that we need some Muggle money." Harry said.

"Is five galleons good enough?" Tony asked.

"One galleon is good enough; Hell one sickle is good enough, but we need to get it changed," Harry replied.

"Gringotts does it for a two percent tariff. We'll get 490 pounds there," Tony said.

"Hold on, are we seriously considering going to the Muggle world right now? What about your parents?" Charles said.

"They don't have to know," Tony replied. "We'll tell my parents that we went to your house, and your parents already know we're at my house. We'll just go into the Muggle world, get a deck of cards, and come out."

"I'm not sure about this. Plus, what about you, Charles. You could be recognized." Harry said.

"Relax Harry. No one will recognize me in my disguise," Charles said. He took out an amulet that was tucked under his shirt, and pressed the center button. Immediately, Charles transformed before Harry's eyes into a slightly shorter and chubbier boy with blond hair. Harry, however, could sense something fuzzy with his senses, as if they were being played with. He closed his eyes, ignoring Charles's and Tony's questions about what he was doing, and searched out for Charles's magic. Immediately he found something, and he latched on it. It was as if Charles's appearance was being blocked by something. Harry ripped through it, and opened his eyes to see Charles normally. He looked to Tony who was looking at him, puzzled. It seemed that Tony still saw Charles as the alternate appearance.

"Alright, ready to go," Charles said.

"Hang on, how do you know where the Muggle world is?" Harry asked.

"Oh, it's simple. The Muggle world is connected to the magical world through Diagon Alley, the busiest area in all of magical Britain." Tony explained. "You can buy anything at Diagon Alley, and it's almost a kilometers long. It's funny, because Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley, the Alley next to it, are the only two magical areas in the region, and they are certainly not allies; no alley is a kilometers long. Anyways, the English branch of Gringotts is in Diagon Alley. There are smaller magical shopping centers for potions and rare ingredients in other places, and you can find pretty much anything in magical towns like Godric's Hollow and Hogsmeade, but Diagon Alley is the most convenient. You know, everything in one place."

"Oh, that's cool," Harry said.

"Yeah, it's pretty neat," Charles replied. "But it's also pretty crowded too. At any given time, there's about 1000 people in the alley."

"1000!" Harry said. That was about one six-hundredth the magical population of all of magical England.

"Yeah, well, back to school shopping can be rough there. That's why mum thought ahead and owl-ordered everything we need for school. Well, everything except for a wand." Charles said.

"How often do you go to Diagon Alley?" Harry asked.

"Well, with mum and dad, about once a month. But me and Tony usually sneak in 'bout once a week to hang out. They have a really good ice cream parlor too. We've never been to the Muggle world together, though, because we never had a guide, and we'd get lost. Now that you're here, we can go." Charles said.

"Back to going to the Muggle world, you guys sure you want to do this," Tony said.

"Yes," Charles said. "It's now or never."

"OK," Tony said. "Well, let's head on out."

They walked back to the main hall toward the floo after Tony called out to his father that they were going to Charles's house. They were about to enter the floo when a girl entered the entrance floo. All wizarding establishments had entrance floos and exit floos so that people did not bump into each other, which looked odd because two fireplaces were positioned right next to each other in the house. The girl was about 150 cm tall, about average height for her age, which Harry estimated to be eleven. She had a cute heart-shaped face, with blue eyes and thick brown hair, and she did not seem to have Tony's metamorphagus ability. Tony immediately froze in fear after seeing her, something she quickly picked up on.

"Tony, where are you going?" she asked.

"Oh, just to Charles's house," he quickly said.

"OK, go on. Don't let me disturb you," she said.

"Alright, I will," Tony said.

"Alright, go," she said.

"I'm going," he replied.

"Then go," she said.

"Damn, alright fine, we're going to the Muggle world." he said. "How did you know?"

"Charles," she said, gesturing to Charles's fake form.

"Dammit," Charles said, pressing his amulet.

"And who's your little friend here," she asked, turning to Harry.

"Oh, Alex, this is Harry. Harry, this is my crazy and devious twin sister, Alex." Tony introduced.

"Hmm. Pleasure. Are you as bone-headed as these two over here?" she asked.

"Define bone-headed," Harry shot back.

"Let's see. Unhealthy obsession with Quidditch," she began.

"I can't fly," Harry replied.

"Only interested in pranks," she continued.

"Well, I do like pranks," Harry said. "Especially psychological."

"And complete apathy toward getting an education," Alex finished.

"Hey, I was second in our class," Charles interrupted.

"And who was first?" Alex asked.

"You," Charles grumbled.

"Exactly," Alex said.

"Well, I don't have, how did you put it, an apathy toward getting an education," Harry countered.

"Really. Then why are you hanging with these two gorillas?" she asked.

"Oh, you're so going to get it," Tony said.

"I'm actually Charles's twin brother," Harry said.

"Really. I wasn't under the impression that Charles had a twin brother. Though I can see the resemblance. Lily's eyes, James's face. Don't know where you got your height from, though." Alex said. She switched gears. "Regardless, what's stopping me from telling dad that you are going to the Muggle world?" she asked.

"Have you ever been to the Muggle world?" Harry asked.

"No," Alex said.

"Would you like to go with us?" Harry asked.

"Harry was raised by Muggles," Tony bragged. "He knows the ins and outs of the Muggle world."

"Be that as it may, I believe that I was talking to Harry, was it? Well, Harry, I must say that I've only been to the Muggle world once-" she said.

"When?" Tony interrupted.

"With mum. And I didn't get a good look around, so assuming that you're not like these two gorillas and will be a reasonable tour guide, I'll go in exchange for not telling on you." she said.

"Aw man, does she have to come?" Tony said.

"And we're not gorillas. I came second and Tony came fifth. Perfectly good scores." Charles retorted.

"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that honey," Alex said sardonically.

"Shut up Alex," Tony said. "And besides, why do you have to come?"

"Fine, I'll just tell dad you're going to the Muggle world," Alex said.

"And anyways," Harry said. "We're only going there to get a deck of Muggle cards."

"You play Muggle card games?" Alex said, surprised.

"Of course, I grew up in the Muggle world." Harry replied.

"Are they any good?" Alex asked.

"Well, they're much better than exploding snap," Harry said. "You sure that there aren't any other card games in the wizarding world? How do wizards gamble?"

"Wizards gamble on the outcome of duels and Quidditch matches, not on card games." Alex said.

"Oh. Well in the Muggle world, there are entire cities devoted to gambling on Muggle card games," Harry said. "They're actually pretty fun."

"Hmm. I'm intrigued. Count me in," Alex said.

"Aww man, you had to get her in on that too," Tony said.

"She doesn't seem too bad," Harry replied.

"Yeah, to you. Wait till you get to know her." Tony said.

"So, are we going to the Muggle world or what?" Alex asked.

"Fine. But if we get caught, you are not going to weasel out of this by pulling your little innocent act." Tony said.

"What innocent act?" Alex innocently said.

"Argh. Fine, you can come along. Let's head on out." Tony said while Charles pushed down on his amulet.

The four children quickly floo'd to Gringotts, which had it's own separate public floo for patrons to use. They exited the floo and this time, Harry was prepared. He knew what goblins looked like because of his brief exposure to the wizarding world through the book that James had him read, and he was not shocked to see the small creatures. The children walked up to the first open teller, whose nametag Harry read as "Griphook", and Tony strode up to the front. "Hi, I'd like to exchange 5 galleons for pounds," he confidently said.

"Gringotts takes a two percent tariff." the goblin rudely huffed.

"Yeah, it's cool," Tony said, giving five galleons to the goblin.

"Here," the goblin said, counting out four hundred pound notes and nine ten pound notes. Tony handled the money unfamiliarly before giving it to Harry, who put it all into Tony's money bag except for a ten pound note. "Next," the goblin rudely yelled.

"Alright, so where's the leaky cauldron," Harry asked after exiting the shop.

"Apparently it's ... right behind a brick wall somewhere in Diagon Alley," Charles said.

"I thought you knew," Harry accused.

"I knew of it, I never had the need to go there," Charles said.

"Boys," Alex sighed, before stalking off, gesturing for the three boys to follow her. They walked over to the other end of Diagon Alley, which took about ten minutes as it was almost a kilometer long, and reached a large brick wall.

"Okay, now I know that if you tap a certain brick, the wall will unfold," Alex said.

"Tap a certain brick? What is this crap," Charles said.

"Shh, I'm trying to find it," Alex said. "Ah, here it is." She tapped the brick, and nothing happened. "Damn, why is it not working."

Immediately after she said those words, the wall of bricks unfolded, revealing the dirtiest looking pub that any of them had ever seen. To be fair, none of them had ever been in a pub before, but that was no excuse for the pub's uncleanliness. An extremely tiny wizard walked out, with a slightly taller yet much younger girl following him. The girl had light brown bushy hair and brown eyes; yet something about her seemed off-putting. Muttering a quick "excuse me", the short wizard exited the area, with the young girl quickly following him.

"Well that was weird," Charles said. "Anyways, let's go in,"

"That was the entrance to the wizarding world. That's what Muggle-born wizards see the first time they enter the wizarding world!" Alex exclaimed after they had exited the pub.

"Well, I believe it serves as a stark contrast. The ugliness of the pub really emphasizes the beauty of Diagon Alley. Now, where the hell are we?" Harry asked.

"Well, this pub is the leaky cauldron." Tony said.

"I know that, I mean where in the Muggle world are we?" Harry asked.

"We need a map," Tony said.

"Well, there's a gas station down the street. Let's go," Harry said. The group followed him as he walked over to the Shell gas station. They walked inside, and immediately, Charles, Tony, and Alex were impressed by the sheer amount of food there was in such a small place. Ignoring them, Harry walked up to the front counter and said "Can I have a map please?"

"Tourist section's over there," the man replied without looking up from his crossword puzzle, jerking his thumb in the direction of the far corner of the store. Harry quickly followed the direction his thumb pointed and walked over to the tourist section. Meanwhile, Tony and Charles were eyeing the sodas with interest. Neither knew exactly what a soda was, but they had heard that sodas were very good. Harry pulled out a map of the city, which turned out to be London, and opened it, immediately taking out the page of advertisements inside of it. He quickly found what he was looking for: a convenience store in the city, and put it back in its place.

"Let's go," he said to Charles and Tony.

"Wait, can we get one of those?" Charles asked.

"Yeah, I've always wanted to try a soda," Tony said.

"The wizarding world doesn't have soda?" Harry asked.

"No, the best we have is pumpkin juice. Well, except for butterbeer, but I've only tried that once." Tony said.

Thinking that then would be a good time to play his first prank as a wizard, Harry replied with "Oh, you don't want those sodas," where Charles was eyeing a pepsi. "No, you're going to want a red bull."

"A red bull?" Charles asked.

"Yep," Harry said. "Tastes amazing, but only have it right before you want to sleep as it makes you slightly drowsy."

"Right before I sleep, huh," Tony said. "Hmm, sounds good to me. Let's get some."

"OK," Harry said. "Why don't you give it to me, and I'll pay for it." They each gave him a red bull from the fridge, and gave them to Harry. Harry paid for them, getting a raised eyebrow but no comment from the cashier, probably due to his age, and brought them back to Tony and Charles. He put the drinks in Tony's money-bag, which was bottomless and weightless, and took the three novices to Muggle London out of the shop.

"So where are we going, almighty tour guide," Alex said sarcastically.

"Keep walking on Charings Cross Road for about half a kilometer, and we shouldn't miss it. Let's go," Harry said.

The four children looked heavily out of place around the surrounding London areas. Although they were all wearing regular clothes that looked like Muggle clothes (not robes), it was obvious even at a glance that their clothes were fine quality and they were therefore very rich. But no one tried to stop them, so they continued on until they reached a large Asda. They quickly entered, with the three novices marveling at the size of the store.

"Yeah, these stores are pretty common in the Muggle world," Harry said as he browsed through the toys section. He looked up to only see Alex; Charles and Tony had run off somewhere.

"Where the hell are they?" Harry asked.

"Charles and Tony?" Alex said. "Oh, they got bored and decided to explore."

"Ugh," Harry sighed. Picking up a deck of cards, he left the area, searching for Charles and Tony with Alex. Alex looked bored, but Harry didn't really care. They searched the large Walmart for about fifteen minutes, with Alex marveling at the beautiful Muggle technology, when they finally reached the video game section. 'Of course' Harry mentally sighed as he spotted Charles and Tony competing with each other in a racing game on the Nintendo gamecube, with Charles winning by a longshot. Harry watched for a while and noticed that Charles was rather good for a novice to Muggle technology, while Tony was not so good.

"Okay, that's enough," Harry said, taking the controllers from Charles and Tony.

"Aww man," Charles said.

"Why doesn't the wizarding world have that?" Tony asked.

"Well, I'm no expert, but from what I read, Muggle technologies don't work in wizarding environments. Are there wizarding televisions?" he asked.

"Yeah," Tony said.

"Yeah, well, wizard televisions must work in a different way or something, but Muggle televisions use electricity. Now I don't have any experience with wizarding televisions, but these things are called game consoles, and you can play games on televisions, which I'm guessing you can't do on wizarding televisions.

"That game was awesome," Tony said.

"Hmm, maybe we should invest some time into trying to make a game viable on wizarding televisions. If you two boneheads are sucked right up into it, I'm sure it would have some profitability in the wizarding world. And we do have an expert on the Muggle world with us," Alex thought aloud.

"Yes, well the time is" Harry said, looking at his watch "5:00. Dinner's at seven, which means we need to go now. We can explore Muggle London later."

"Okay," Charles regretfully said, leaving the gamecube controllers wistfully. They went to the express line, bought the Muggle deck of cards, and quickly went back home. On the way back, Alex questioned Harry about his identity, asking if he was really Charles's twin brother, and got the full story from Harry. Thankfully, their parents had no clue that they were out, so Alex followed the boys up to Tony's room as Harry opened the deck of cards.

"Now, there are many different games you can play with a deck of cards. There are kiddie card games, which old maid, or exploding snap if you will, will fall under. Then there are more advanced card games like hearts. But I'm going to be showing you a card game used in gambling: Texas Hold'em poker," Harry said. "Now, I learnt this game at school, and we used to play for pushups, but I think that it would be more fun if we played for money. Unfortunately, I don't have any money-"

"Yeah you do," Charles interrupted. "You can draw from my money-bag which connects straight from our trust vault."

"Okay. So, let's make this a low-stakes game, one knut buy-ins - I'll explain later -, so why don't we each take 100 knuts out." Harry said.

"One hundred knuts," Charles, Tony, and Alex simultaneously said, withdrawing the money from their bags. The money came out in nice stacks of ten, which they lined up next to each other. Charles repeated "One hundred knuts", and gave the next ten stacks to Harry.

"Okay, so this is how you play. I'll explain the rules of the game." Harry spent the next half hour explaining how to play texas hold'em to the three novices to all Muggle card game. "Do you understand the game?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, seems simple enough," Tony said.

"Okay, let's go. It's 6, so we can play for about an hour before we have to go for dinner." Harry said, dealing out the first hand for their game. Harry looked at his two pocket cards. Pocket two's, a pretty good starting hand. He showed no indication of whether his cards were good or bad, unlike Charles and Tony, the former cursing in disgust and the latter barely concealing his joy. Alex, however, also kept a poker face, and it seemed that she was more skilled than Charles or Tony at bluffing. Since Harry was dealing, Tony was the small blind, and Charles was the big blind, which meant that Alex started.

"Call," Alex said, putting in two knuts.

"I call," Harry agreed.

"I'll raise two knuts," Tony said.

"Fold," Charles said contemptibly.

"Call," Alex called.

"Call," Harry said, putting in his money into the pot. Burning a card, he displayed the three flop cards, showing a five, a three, and a two. Keeping a straight face, he gestured for Tony to go.

"I'll raise 5 knuts," he said.

"Call," Alex said.

"I'll raise 10 knuts," Harry raised.

"Call," Tony said.

"Call," Alex agreed. The pot was now fairly large at 59 knuts. Burning another card, Harry placed down the next card, which was a three.

"I'll raise 5 knuts," Tony raised.

"I'll call," Alex said.

"I'll call," Harry agreed, quickly burning and unfolding the last card, which was another two. He now had a four of a kind, and he could not waste it.

"I'll put in 5 more knuts," Tony said, barely concealing a smile.

"I'll raise 20 more knuts," Alex said, putting in her money.

"I'll go all in," Harry said, putting in all his chips.

"Seriously," Tony said.

"Seriously," Harry agreed.

"Alright, all in for me too," Tony said, putting in all his chips. "And you're going down."

Alex, analyzing the flop, had come to the conclusion that her cards: a three and a five, made the highest possible hand besides a four of a kind, so decided to call. The pot was at a staggering 302 knuts at that point.

"Show," Harry said.

"Alright," Tony said, revealing his cards in a dramatic fashion. "Double aces."

"I'm sorry, Tony, those would be good cards. That is, if I didn't have this," Alex said, revealing her three and five.

"Truly wonderful, Alex. Too bad you don't win," Harry trash-talked as he showed his double twos, taking the huge pile of knuts over to his end. Charles breathed a sigh of relief that he was not involved in the incident, while Tony and Alex grudgingly bought in again at 100 knuts. The game continued, eventually, with Alex making her money back and breaking even, Tony losing 250 knuts, Charles losing 100 knuts, and Harry gaining 350 knuts. By the end of the game, Tony had to buy in three times, due to wasteful spending, while Charles lost all his money on the last game, and never had to buy in again.

"Well, that was a surprisingly fun excursion and game of cards. Thank you, Harry," Alex said.

"No problem, Alex," Harry replied.

"Yeah, well, of course you think that, you two won," Tony exclaimed.

"Tony, you're so readable it's insane to think that you would have won." Alex said.

"Me? Readable?" Tony rebuffed.

"Of course. Why do you think we always folded when you had good cards. Your left hand twitches every time." Alex said, turning to Charles. "You're not that bad, though," she said to Charles. "You can keep a good poker face, but you seem to have an aversion toward folding, which costs you many unnecessary chips. Probably due to your boorish reckless nature. And you," she said, turning to Harry, "Are amazing at this game."

"Well, decision making is not that hard, computer programs have been known to make some serious cash in poker tournaments; no, keeping a straight face, that's the hard part. It comes with practice," he said. "And you're not so bad yourself."

"Thank you," Alex said.

"Well, I think we have to go," Charles said, glancing down at his watch. It was fashionable and practical in that age for wizards to wear wind-up watches, which did not use electricity. "It's 6:45, and we have to be back by 7 for dinner."

"Oh, that's a shame," Alex said. "This was the one time I found it enjoyable to hang out with you boys. Of course, that was largely due to the presence of Harry here, and you two dumbasses offer me little-"

"I came second!" Charles exclaimed.

"Offer me little intellectual challenge." she finished without skipping a beat.

"OK, well, I'll see you later," Harry said.

"Yeah, see ya," Tony said. They opened the door to see four adults quickly scampering out of the way, pretending to be doing something else. Harry quickly recognized two of them as his parents, but had no clue as to who the other two were.

"Mom," Tony said. "Were you spying on us?"

"No, no, of course not," the second woman said. She was young and extremely pretty, by Harry's estimations, no older than 35. The other man seemed slightly older, about 36 or 37, but both had a certain intimidation factor, and looked very powerful.

"And you must be Harry," the man said, extending his hand. "Hi, I'm Sirius, Charles's godfather."

"Oh," Harry said, slightly crestfallen. "Do I have a godfather?"

A hurt look passed across all four adult faces, as James replied "You did, but he is no longer a friend to us, and he will never lay a hand on you again."

"Why?" Harry asked.

"That's a story for a later date," the woman said. She extended her own hand, saying "Hi, I'm Amelia."

"Actually, I think they're all ready to know by now. Even Harry; especially Harry, you have no idea how much Harry has faced." Lily said.

"Alright, but I'm not doing the explaining," Amelia said.

"Kids," James began. "Harry's godfather was a bad man named Peter Pettigrew. He used to be our friend, but he betrayed us, joining You-Know-Who. Now, I won't go into details, but Peter was an extremely powerful wizard, who I guess never really betrayed us because he was You-Know-Who's from the start. He cowered behind a cowardly but Gryffindorish persona, when actually he was a cunning malefactor. I still remember that he got an average grade of an O+ on his NEWTs, and he told us he cheated on them, while he actually was just that good at magic. He ended up placing second in Hogwarts, after Lily, and fifth in the world. Anyways, one night, on Halloween, Lily and I needed a break from dealing with the kids, and Sirius and Amelia had to deal with you two," he gestured at Tony and Alex, "so we asked Peter to stay and watch the kids. It was a bad move on our part, because for some reason, Voldemort decided to attack Charles that night, and Peter, his loyal servant, allowed him to enter. Eventually, we caught Peter and shoved a bunch of veritaserum down his throat and well, now we know the truth." James finished.

"Wow," Tony said.

"That is quite a tale," Alex said.

"Yes, but that is distracting us from the point that Alex, you were in Tony's room, hanging out with the boys. You never even talk to the boys for more than ten minutes willingly, and usually spend all your time with your cousin, Susan." Sirius said.

"I knew it, you were spying on us," Tony said.

"So we got to thinking, what was the difference between yesterday, when you didn't even bat an eyebrow at the boys to today, when you're willingly hanging out with them. And we came to a conclusion. Harry." he said.

"Yes, of course, because Harry is not as bone-headed as those two, and is actually worth hanging out with. He taught me how to play texas hold'em." she said.

"Er, do you mean the Muggle card game," Lily interjected.

"Yes," she said.

"Where did you get the cards from?" she asked.

"I snuck them from the Dursleys," Harry said. "I took them to school a couple of times, and I played card games with my friends."

"You had friends!" James said. "I mean - I mean - not in that way that you're antisociable or anything, but I thought the Dursleys wouldn't let you."

"Yeah, it sucked that I wasn't able to hang out after school, but during recess and lunch, I did have a group of friends, yes," he said.

"Oh," James said.

"What were you thinking?" Harry asked.

"Oh, nothing, nothing," he said.

"Yes, well anyways," Amelia said with a glint in her eye. "We came to a different conclusion as to why you were hanging out with Harry. After all, he's a boy and you're a girl and,"

"MOM," Alex yelled, blushing.

"What, he's not unattractive," she said.

"And it would bring our families together too." Lily added in.

"Might I interject that you're already twelfth cousins," Sirius said.

"So what, your parents were half-siblings and you turned out - wait, you may have a point," Lily said. "Still, twelfth is pretty good by wizarding standards."

"Yeah, well, I do not like Harry," Alex said. Realizing what she had just said, she retracted, saying "I mean, I like you, as a friend."

"Ouch, friend-zoned," James said.

"Mmm, in just one day too," Sirius added. "That's rough."

"Need I remind you that she is your daughter," Lily said.

"Well, on that bright note, let's have dinner," Amelia said. They made their way to the dining table, and the Potters and Blacks engaged in small-talk and ate until it was time for them to go home. Harry was tired by nine, for he had woke up at four that morning in preparation for the big day, so slept peacefully in his large bed, content with the way his life was unfolding. It may not have gone exactly to plan, but it was working.

**AN: Sorry about the Walmart thing, I searched up Walmart store locations to make sure that they were in the UK, it didn't tell me that they were called Asda.**


	6. Chapter 6: Reflection

**-Teufel1987 Yeah, the friend-zoned and the relationship thing were just jokes made by James and Sirius, and Harry doesn't really care. He's not going to be in a relationship till he turns 13 at the least.**

**And as for your height comments, I had meant to write 20 cms, not ten cms (I fixed it). But the average height for 13 year olds is about 156 cm, and for fourteen year olds is 162 cm's, while for eleven year olds, it's 136 cms, so yeah, the numbers do work out in the end.**

**-Guest, who wrote**

**"Twelfth cousins? You do realize that it is estimated that the most unrelated you can be to someone is around 6th cousin. And talking genetically 2nd cousin is far enough a way there is no real change in birth defects (you can get into the math and there are slight increases as you more related but up to second they are so tiny compared to environmental factors for all practical purposes they don't exist, it hardly even matters for first cousins in fact though there is actually a small, though noticeable when looking at statics, increase in birth defects between first cousins compared to two random people)."**

**I really don't think that's true. Sixth cousins share one set of common great-grandparents seven generations up, and I'm pretty sure that any two random people will not have a common ancestor that close, especially if they have different ethnicities. I think what you're thinking of is six degrees of separation, not sixth cousins. And as for the birth defects thing, yeah, I agree it doesn't matter. Lily's comment was mainly intended for humor. But twelfth cousins is plausible, considering the inbreeding within the Black family and the magical population of the UK, in my fic it's 600,000 people.**

**-Guest who wrote**

**"Infantile snake nonsense. Use at least snakes(Adder,Grass and Smooth) which exist in england. You can't just place snakes there which live in different temperature conditions."**

**I did say he escaped from a zoo, and scarlet king snakes live in climates similar to those in England. Regardless, George and Reggie are probably not going to come again.**

**-Guest who wrote**

**"Please make the pairing Harry/Fleur/Tonks/Daphne/Astoria/Hermione/Luna/Susan/Hannah, or something similar,"**

**and to sujayroy30**

**The pairing has already been set to Harry/Fleur, and I have worked everything out on when they meet and all that stuff. No, I will not be adding another girl or more; Harry will only have one girlfriend at a time. And this fic will not be very favorable to Hermione either, though it will be quite favorable to Ron. While I don't have a problem with Harry having more than one girlfriend or future wife, I have already set the pairing. Additionally, if I were Harry, I wouldn't want more than one girlfriend; his time will be spent on his own projects, with minimal time spent with his girlfriend. Finally, I don't believe in love in first sight, and while I have no problem reading soul bond fics, I just can't write them. So Harry and Fleur will not magically fall in love by some veela connection or anything like that.**

**-DarkkEagle**

**Sorry, but Snape won't be the Potions professor at Hogwarts; Lily will be, as I think I've mentioned in a previous author's note. I'm trying to make Hogwarts the school for the best, and with teachers like Snape, it's just not possible. However, I've decided to alter the plotline that I was going for due to many reviews and messages asking about Snape. So, Snape will be playing a role in the fic, though he won't show up till Harry's fourth year.**

**-Mystolon**

**Right, so to your reviews about the wizarding world, Muggle borns are at a disadvantage upon entering the wizarding world because they basically have to start fresh. Meaning basically all money inherited from parents is about half-value in the wizarding world. I wouldn't really call it inflation, however, because wizards don't really interact with Muggles, and don't sell their goods to Muggles. Wizards can create goods much more efficiently through use of house elves, essentially slave labor, and magic, and therefore pay less for their goods. I can go into everything I learnt from macroeconomics, the CPI and the GDP, and all that stuff, but I won't, because that involves me actually remembering what they are. But basically, the galleon is worth 100 pounds and the average income of the members of members of the wizarding world is 40 galleons, hence 80 galleons per household. However, wizarding families can still be poor because with a higher standard of living (double the non-magical standard of living) they are relatively poor. Also, the Weasleys have lost all of their family fortune, and Arthur deliberately takes a low paying job, which will pay 20 galleons in my fic (per month), and Molly doesn't work, giving the household an income of 20 galleons per month, or 2000 pounds per month. For a family of seven, whose kids have to go to boarding school, that's pretty rough.**

**To your review on Voldemort and his followers, I never said that all of his followers were in English. There are about 620,000 wizards in UK, going at a rate of 1% of the magical world.**

**Now, here's what I have planned for the future chapters. I haven't written chapter 7 and on yet, though, so those may change. I've decided to stop being one chapter ahead, as I usually end up majorly changing the chapters anyways.**

**Chapter 6: Month before Hogwarts**

**Chapter 7: Train Ride, Sorting, and First Week**

**Chapter 8: To Halloween**

**Chapter 9: To Christmas**

**Chapter 10: Second Term**

**Chapter 11: Second Term Part 2**

**Chapter 12: End of First Year**

**Chapter 13: First Year Summer Part 1**

**Chapter 14: First Year Summer Part 2**

**FINAL NOTE: The last chapter was a bit dry and dialogue heavy, and I didn't really get into what Harry was feeling during his time with James and Lily or with his friends. I'm going to try to fix that with this chapter and give a final word on Harry's feelings toward his family before moving on. This has the side effect of making this chapter a bit of a fluff chapter, in which not much gets done.**

**And sorry for inflating the word count with all these Author's Notes and responses to reviews, but I felt that I needed to address some of the concerns that readers were making. In case you want to know, without all of these AN's, the chapter is about 4k words long.**

**Chapter 6: Reflection**

"Curious, very curious," the old man said. As Harry reflected on Charles's choice of wand, he reflected on his own experiences the month before Hogwarts.

The last month before Hogwarts passed by very quickly for Harry. He convinced Lily and James to allow him to say goodbye to all of his friends from school, which meant that the Potter family got to visit the Muggle world again. Harry visited all of his friends, telling them that he was going to a boarding school up north and that he had been adopted, so he would not be staying there. Despite Harry's cold and aloof nature, after he wrapped the Dursleys under his thumb, Harry was able to make many friends at school. It started when he stopped Dudley's gang from bullying a couple of first graders into giving him their lunch money; everyone at school hated Dudley's gang, they were just too afraid to do anything about it. After that, he became one of the most popular kids at school, and he was friendly with everyone. Harry's friends were all sad to see him go, but happy that the Dursleys moved out.

Apparently, it was common knowledge in the neighborhood that the Dursleys were sentenced for doing something (nobody knew) and that they would be in jail for life. Even Dudley would be in jail for life. Harry was pleased at that outcome, his revenge finally complete. Number four Privet Drive, however, was quickly becoming a haunted house, and people in the street would dare others to run up to it and touch the house for bets. People swore that they saw shadows appearing in the house during the daylight, and at night the lights would flicker on and off. Harry didn't know if this was true or not, but regarded these rumors as a small community's imagination at play.

Alex ended up hanging out with the three boys more, since she actually had respect for Harry's intelligence and knowledge for the Muggle world. Harry usually spent his time learning about the vast wizarding world, as his introduction barely covered the rich history and the myriad of customs, skills, and creatures native to the wizarding world. When he wasn't learning about the wizarding world, he was usually at the Black's house. Charles's description of Tony as his friend didn't even begin to describe their relationship; they were closer than most brothers, and did everything together.

The four made frequent excursions to the Muggle world, with Charles and Tony being wary of many of the products after the Red Bull prank that left them up the entire night. They were at a distinct disadvantage, as there was a market for guides for Muggleborn wizards to the wizarding world, but there was no guide for wizards to the Muggle world. Harry eventually told them what Red Bull was, and explained the Muggle world to them, but that was after he convinced Tony to go up to a bartender and ask for a Jack Daniel's. The resulting fallout almost got Tony arrested when he demanded his drink, and Harry had to use his powers to save Tony. Of course, Tony never got the drink, though he really wanted one after hearing what it was.

Harry once took them to a Muggle theme park, in which Tony and Charles were heavily bored. It seemed that even the fastest of rides could not compare to riding a high speed broom. They loved the games, though, and Charles spent fifty pounds trying to win a giant stuffed bear. He spent so much time and effort at it that the clerk just gave it to him, making Charles immensely proud. Alex didn't like the park much, calling the rides death traps and the games rip-offs. When Harry convinced her to go on the drop tower, however, she was screaming in fright, and even twenty minutes after the ride was pale and frightened. Tony took this once in a lifetime opportunity to scare and prank his sister, before she finally snapped out of it, and threatened to tell Sirius that the three boys had gone to a Muggle amusement park. Harry could see the devious logic behind the idea; if she told Sirius that those three had gone to an amusement park, she immediately would be assumed to have not gone; after all, if she did go, why would she tell?

The four kids played poker fairly frequently, about twice a week. During their third time playing, when Tony was frustrated at losing so much, Harry had noticed an assault on his mental shields. He quickly returned the attack, and traced it back to Tony. Harry wondered whether it was instinctual and accidental magic, or mind magic, that Harry had researched to be known as Legimency. And if it truly was Legimency, then why would Tony be so obvious? Perhaps it was a mixture of both; Harry remembered feeling angry when he was first able to use magic, but later was able to control it. What if Tony's emotions were subconsciously doing the same, using Legimency to attempt to win at the game in which he felt frustrated at. Regardless, Tony's technique did not work, and Tony seemed to have a mild headache for two weeks after the incident, though he seemed oblivious to what he did. Eventually, Charles and Tony got better at the game, and all four were skilled enough to have about equal odds of winning. It got kind of boring after that, so they learnt new card games from Harry, who taught them how to play hearts, deuces, and spoons; all non-gambling card games but interesting ones all the same. Of course, Harry could have just cheated at poker and looked into the other players' minds, but he did not want to, as it would ruin the game.

The family made a couple of trips to Diagon Alley with disguises on, and Harry got his own amulet that let him change his disguise. However, he figured out that he did not need it after experimenting with his metamorphagus powers, and realizing that he could change his hair color in addition to his eye color. No matter how hard he tried, however, he could not change anything else on his body. He probably had received the metamorphagus trait from Lily somewhere along the line, as the last known metamorphagus who was related to James was his great great great grandfather's fifth cousin, and the chance that the trait had skipped ten generations would be very low. On the other hand, the Black family (Tony's family) was rich with metamorphagi. Six of the twelve metamorphagi in the magical UK were at least sixth cousins of Tony, and there were many partial metamorphagi in the family. It was rumored that the original metamorphagi was a Black, and therefore all of the metamorphagi in the world were Blacks. Considering the fact that the Black family went back to the 800's, and the first recorded Metamorphagus was recorded in 722, Harry found this quite hard to believe. Still, it could be possible that the first recorded Metamorphagus's grandson founded the Black family. Regardless, all Harry really cared about was the fact that he was a partial metamorphagus.

Harry's adoption into the Potter family, however, was not quiet at all. It seemed that ever since Charles had defeated Voldemort, the Potter house had gone up in standing by a large margin. Founded in 1724, the Potter family was one of the newer families that had gotten a seat in the Wizengamot. Votes in the Wizengamot were acquired through money. By giving 50,000 galleons to the Ministry of Magic, a family could get one vote permanently, for all time regardless of whether the head of the family died. Additionally, votes were considered property, and could be given to others through wills or sold for money. The Potter family had 40 votes in the Wizengamot, as it was a relatively new family, but James was saving up for another vote. However, the Black family had acquired 843 votes, and had the funds to easily buy 100 more. Many of the old families had died out, making their votes null and void, but the current amount of votes in the Wizengamot was 12440, with the Malfoy family having the most at 892. Taxes were relatively low in the wizarding world as the government got most of its money from Wizengamot votes. There were usually 40 new votes being bought per year, which gave a large sum of 2,000,000 galleons to the British wizarding government. It was tradition for families to only buy a maximum of one vote per year, a tradition that most people followed for fear of looking bad. While that was not nearly as much per capita in taxes as the British Muggle government got, wizards paid for their own schools, and needed little national defense. The British magical government did not have an army, and employed 2000 wizards at an average price of 45 galleons per month, giving them more than 1,000,000 galleons per year for funding for the Department of Mysteries and Equipment for aurors and Ministry workers.

Back to Harry's adoption back into the Potter family, the Potters were hounded by the press after James Potter released the information. After all, no one knew that the Boy-Who-Lived had a twin. People were speculating why they disowned Harry in the first place, and what was wrong with him. All James had released was that Harry was disowned due to a previous mistake and sent to live with Muggles, but was re-adopted back into the Potter family.

And this brought Harry back around to the forefront of his circle of thought, that no matter what he reflected on he always cycled back to: what he thought about James and Lily. He had decided to see how it would play out at the Potter household before making a decision on what the do with James and Lily, and what to do with his life in general. After a month in the wizarding world, he decided that his goal in the wizarding world would be to take it over and reform it. Harry did not want to concern himself with the Muggle world, as it would be much harder to take the Muggle world over. To Harry, it seemed that it would be fairly easy to take over the British wizarding areas, and use that force to take over other countries. And Harry was not vengeful nor was he crazy; he just felt that by taking over the wizarding world, he could change it, making it much better. To tell the truth, Harry internally had an extremely high ego, which would come to anyone after gaining immense power over regular civillians when just seven years old. However he hid it well from the rest of the world, and he came across as very humble.

But Harry did have a few valid arguments. The Muggle governmental system and the way that Muggles did things in general were much better than the way wizards did things. In a position of power, Harry could slowly shift the attitude of the common people to be more supportive of Muggle ideas and Muggle inventions, and could bring the Muggle world into the magical world. And by the time that Harry stepped out of power, he could leave a beautiful magical world in his wake, full of equality for all, including Muggle-borns, vampires, werewolfs, house-elves, goblins, centaurs, and other intelligent magical creatures. The thing about a magical world was that with that much power, a utopia was achievable.

Harry still wasn't sure about how he felt toward James and Lily after judging them by staying for a month with them. He wanted to hate them; he really did. Although they had a reasonable excuse for leaving him with the Dursleys, they had no excuse for not checking up on him. He understood that it would be painful to see him having a good life and not being a part of it, but he withstood so much pain living at the Dursleys; could they not go through a fraction of that pain just to check up on him. And what was their guarantee that he would have a good life at the Dursleys? How did they know that Vernon and Petunia hated magic and didn't hate Lily. There were so many random variables that they couldn't have possibly have known how his life was going to turn out. And he tried so hard to hate them for that.

The other fault he had with James and Lily's return into his life was that it was untimely. Harry had all of his problems sorted out with the Dursleys for four years before James and Lily came. He was fine; no, he was more than fine, he was doing great. He was popular, had a good life, got to experiment with magic, and now it was all taken away from him. And for what? Just so that he could be returned with his parents and be a part of a nice happy family. Harry felt that he was too old for family, mentally, not physically. He had already experienced too much, had too many bad memories from his family to feel any pleasure from being around a happy family. Of course he took pleasure from conversing and playing games with adults and children, but not as a family. He needed a family when he was four years old, getting beaten by the fat whales known as the Dursleys, not when he was eleven and had taken care of all of his problems. And to think that they had the gall to just swoop right in and demand that he be taken. Even if it was consensual, they just took an eleven year old boy outside of where he grew up his whole life. They just sprung it on him, didn't even give him time to make a decision; no, they didn't even give him a choice. If Harry didn't have plans for the future, he never would have gone with them, and they probably would have demanded he come. They didn't even take into account that he would be leaving his friends and his entire childhood behind. Even if it wasn't a good childhood, it was still a part of him, and they dared to just take it away. If Harry really had not made peace with his abused past, his memories of his childhood would be strongly repressed, and he would have many psychological problems later in life. Even after his closure with his abused past, he needed at least a month for closure in his hometown. Fortunately, he was able to wind-teleport home every Thursday, when Charles played in a junior Quidditch league with Tony and James and Lily were working, so that he could hang out with his old friends and go back to the abandoned field. But Harry hated them for that.

And yet they had done nothing wrong. It was not like they were evil people, after all. All they had done was listened to a man who the entire magical world bowed down to: Albus Dumbledore. And Dumbledore had done no wrong either; he had merely taken a magical reading that was supposed to be the best. And when they found out about their mistakes, they made the changes needed to remedy the problem. No, he couldn't possibly hate them for that. After all, they were trying to send him to a better life.

Emotionally, Harry was going through another battle in his decision to hate them. He kept reminding himself of the pain and suffering that he had to go through at the abusive home of the Dursleys. And that could all be traced back to his parents. He had to suppress himself physically, emotionally, and mentally for six years of his life, and that was the result of the Potters abandoning him. And the Potters abandoned him. They just threw him away as if he were a bad egg, without a second of thought, just to come back into his life again because he had magic. What would happen if it turned out that all his magic was gone the next day? Would they just throw him away again?

But some part of Harry just connected with the Potters. Harry felt right when he was with the Potters, some part of him always wanted to stay with the Potters. He found comfort in his family, in the fact that they didn't shun him or rebuff him, or force him to do all of the chores in the house. James's laugh was still ringing through his head, as was Lily's smooth voice, and these sounds brought up memories of the wonderful times he had with his parents in the past month he was with them. Harry tried so hard to put on the scared little abused boy act to his parents without revealing his true nature, but every day he spent with his parents, his own personality grew closer and closer to the one he put on for the Potters, one of a boy who had just found a family and loved interacting with them. And the times he spent with his parents were amazing times. And the cold truth was that he tried to hate his parents but some part of him ended up loving them. It wasn't all of it, and it wasn't even half of it. It was the tiniest part of him that was genuinely affected by the things that they did for him every day. And each and every day, Harry's perspective on his parents changed.

But he could not reflect on that. He had to hate his parents, they abandoned him. They threw him out, they had no empathy for him when they did so. He had to crush any empathy that he felt for them in his decision. But even when thinking logically or emotionally, there were always counter arguments. Logically, they abandoned him for a good reason, but they should have checked up on him. Emotionally, he felt pain and suffering from the Dursleys that could be traced back to them, but he always felt good when he interacted with them. And so even after a month, Harry still hadn't made a decision on how he felt about his parents.

And if he truly was putting an act on for them, then what did it mean about his friends? Was he just putting an act on for them too? He truly enjoyed the time that he spent with his friends, but was all of that time for waste? Was he going to break all connections to his friends after standing against James and Lily?

Harry's ill will did not extend to Sirius and Amelia, or Tony, Alex, and Charles. He had gotten to know Amelia more over the course of that month, and found her to be an extremely interesting person. She was the junior head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in the Ministry of Magic, which basically meant that she was next in line to be the head, and was the head of the Auror department of the Ministry. Sirius used to be an Auror, but retired and controlled the Black financial assets and Wizengamot seat. And Tony, Charles, and Alex quickly became his best friends. He spent the most time with Alex; despite her snarky exterior, she was a great person to be around. She was funny, nice, and extremely intelligent. He usually talked to her while Charles and Tony were playing Quidditch, which was most of the time. Alex's cousin, Susan, joined in a couple of times. Susan was pretty interesting too. She was almost as intelligent as Alex, but much more shy and soft-spoken. Tony joked that Harry was a girl, which was why he always hung out with them, but he stopped when Alex threatened to break his organ so that he could join them. Harry found a very good friend in Alex. She had opened up to him and become friendly over the course of the month, compared to her original judging nature.

"Next," the old man called. Harry's reflections were interrupted as the wandmaker named Ollivander called him out for wand fitting. Slightly blushing for zoning out, Harry walked up to Ollivander and let him measure Harry for his wand size.

The family of four had come to Diagon Alley to shop for wands two days before school started. Some would call it procrastination, but Harry was just glad that they could get their wands. He was dying to find out how they worked.

"I have a question," he said. "How do you know which wand is the right wand?"

"Well, somewhere in this room, there is a wand that matches your magical core, and that wand will be the right wand for you," Ollivander half-heartedly explained while making his measurements.

"Okay, so I have to go through about 50% of the wands in this store, and that's if my wand even exists in this store?" Harry questioned.

"No, no, it usually takes 20 tries to find the right wand." Ollivander explained.

"Ah, so multiple wands will work for me. But how do you know the wand that you choose will match my magical core the best," Harry asked. "And what happens if you're wrong?"

Taking off his spectacles and peering into Harry's eyes rather dramatically, Ollivander said "Well, I eliminate the wands based on size, then I gauge the reactions based on different elements. There are 7 different elements typically used in wands. I usually start with the father's wand, then with the mother's wand, then go into the elements by order. The elements are dragon heartstrings, unicorn hairs, pixie dust, phoenix feathers, threstral feathers, snake venom, and griffin feathers. If none of those match, I go to the 29 special elements, and once I find a special element that matches, I find a wand in that special element that matches. Rarely are my special element wands bought. Charles just bought a phoenix feather wand. After I find the right element, I try to match it with the right wood. Once I find the right wood, this narrows it down to four or five wands usually, so I just have the customer try them in order."

"Hurry up, Harry, we don't have all day." Charles said, biting his lip in anticipation of getting a familiar.

"Hold on." Harry said. "Wait, what if the right element isn't in your store?"

"It is highly unlikely that you don't match to any elements. But remember, there's no one right wand. A relationship between wand and wizard is like a relationship between a couple. Your wand's not predetermined for you, and there's no one best wand. But when the right wand chooses you, and you choose the wand, you won't produce better results with any other wand. If you had gone back in time, let's say, and picked a different wand first, and that wand chose you and you it, there's no telling what would have happened. But there's no one right wand out there for you, just like there's no one right girl out there for you. Don't be afraid to be with a girl that you truly love and truly want to be with because you're searching for your one right girl." Ollivander said.

"Did he just give you relationship advice?" Charles asked.

"Shut up, Charles," Harry responded. "Anyways, I guess I need to get fitted for my wand."

* * *

After trying hundreds of wands, literally, after the first seven elements did not work, Ollivander finally found a wand for him. It contained a tail hair from a shadow fox, apparently perfect for the Dark Arts and Defense Against the Dark Arts, and good at Charms and Transfiguration. The wand costed 7 galleons, plus an additional 5 sickles for a self-draw holster and 2 galleons for anti-breaking charms. The self-draw holster allowed the user to store the wand in his sleeve and draw the wand with his own magic, something that Harry found quite convenient. Harry learned that Ollivanders was deemed the best wandsmith in the nation, but people did not go to him because his wands were so expensive. Other smiths in Knockturn Alley, Hogsmeade, and Godric's Hollow had substandard wands, but were much cheaper, at one to two galleons a wand.

Harry quickly woke up Charles, who had just fallen asleep after it took Harry so long to go through the wands, and the two brothers made their way back to Eyelops Owl Emporium, where their parents were waiting to buy them pets. Lily and James questioned them as to why it took so long, and then ushered them into the shop. Inside, Harry found a vast world full of animals that he could not wait to explore. It seemed that Eyelops was not just an owl store; it was a store for all kinds of pets. Harry recognized kneazles, magical cats, playing with each other in a large pen. However, Harry needed to pick an owl and seeing as he had already wasted so much time with his wand, Harry resolved to get done quickly. He chose a brown spotted eagle owl that was capable of flying at a magically boosted 100 kilometers per hour, and bought the appropriate owl care items. Charles chose a large white snowy owl that was extremely beautiful, but only capable of flying at 45 kilometers per hour. Harry valued functionality over beauty, but that was just his decision.

Happy that the family's shopping was finally done, James dragged the family of four back to the floo. They went home content with their purchases.

**AN: Now, I know that I'm going to get some crap about Harry being too nice to his family, so just hear me out here.** **This is a human child, not a robot. I know that I may have written him to be one dimensional in previous chapters, but he is not some kind of overly powerful wizard who always knows what to do and always sticks to his decisions. He makes mistakes, he learns, like all my characters. Harry's decision on what to do with his parents after he is in a position of power is his inner conflict. It's not the main conflict of the story, but he's not going to hate his parents throughout the story.**


End file.
